In front of the Aishwarya Hotel in Thiruvananthapuram is a pothole, almost a perfect circle without the ragged edges. It is a surprise how commuters swerve left and right of it, expertly avoiding it day after day, although it magically appeared in the city road one afternoon. Just as you pat yourself on the back for dodging the hole, you might just thud up and down on a smaller crack coming just after it, almost hidden from the naked eye. But except for giving you a jolt and shocking your poor mind out of its wits, it doesn’t exactly throw you off your bike. Not the same story with some of the other more famous potholes in the city, or the state.
In the last months of 2019, two accidents took the lives of two young men in Kochi, both allegedly due to potholes on the road. In October 2019, 32-year-old Umesh Kumar, who was wearing a helmet and riding a two-wheeler, was thrown off after the vehicle fell into a pothole. He was run over by a bus and killed on the spot. Two months later, a 23-year-old delivery man named Yadhulal lost his life when he tried to avoid a foot-deep pothole on a road in Kochi.
The High Court, which was then hearing a petition to repair potholes, apologised to the deceased young man and his family. Justice Devan Ramachandran also asked for action against engineers and contractors responsible for the bad condition of roads in Kochi. The HC also appointed three advocates – Krishna S, Vinod Bhat and P Deepak – as amicus curiae, to report to the court after visiting the various potholes in Kochi.
“There should have been hundreds of potholes. Initially we used to give the numbers to the court, but later we started visiting the spot, taking photographs, analysing the state of the pothole and the dangers it poses. We would then file our reports or update the court. For most of the roads, the Kochi corporation vows before the court that they have taken all the steps to fix the potholes. But the same roads that they talk about would have fresh potholes after the next rain,” says Advocate Krishna.
A road in Kochi
Last week, when they had another sitting in the case, the corporation said that it could close all the potholes within a month once the rains were over and make the roads motorable. “We coordinate not just with the corporation but also other agencies such as the Public Works Department (PWD) and the CSML (Cochin Smart Mission Ltd). They say lack of funds is one reason why they can’t do a lot of maintenance work,” Krishna adds.
Kerala’s Minister for Public Works, PA Mohammed Riyas says that the main reason for potholes is the lack of a proper drainage system. "There are limits when it comes to road widening in a land with high population density such as Kerala. When it rains and when water flows through both sides of the road, it should ideally reach the drainage but many roads in Kerala do not have a proper drainage system. Add to it the specific climatic conditions of Kerala and you get more potholes. Developing a proper drainage system is not just the work of the PWD but something to be done in coordination with the Local Self Government and other departments,” he tells TNM.
There are roads whose Defect Liability Period has ended — that is, when the contractor is no longer responsible for fixing the defects. For these roads, a running contract will be made with contractors for doing the maintenance work. "The Maintenance Wing of the PWD has now been given charge of this. Through the running contract, the contractors will have to close any potholes as and when they emerge," the minister adds.
Another measure taken by the government is in launching a mobile application called PWD4U through which the public can send complaints of potholes. "They can send photos of potholes through the app, and if it is a road that comes under the PWD, immediate measures will be taken to fix it. In the three months since its launch — from June 7 to September 7, we have received about 12,000 complaints," Minister Riyas says.
Only one-third of the more than one lakh kilometres of roads in Kerala come under the PWD. The PWD is trying for maximum digitalisation of these roads. "In June, only 4,000 of the 33,000 km road stretch under the PWD had been digitalised. Within three months, we have now digitalised 27 to 28 thousand kilometres in all. We have also formed a committee of PWD engineers led by IAS officer Sreeram Sambasiva Rao (CEO, Kerala Road Fund Board) to give a report on the possibilities of technology that can be used," the minister says.
According to data published by Statistica Research Department, over 4,770 accidents occurred in India, due to potholes, in 2019. "Though the number of accidents due to potholes decreased (from 4,869 in 2018), its share in the total causes of accidents due to road features had increased," says the report. The CEIC, a global data platform, puts the number of people injured due to potholes in Kerala at 55 in 2019, a sharp decrease from 779 persons in 2017.
When activist P B Satheesh filed a Right To Information (RTI) query to find out the number of accidents on the Mannuthy-Karukutty stretch, he found that there were 2,756 accidents from 2011 to 2018, killing 537 people and injuring more than 2,300 others. A report in the Hindu says how unscientific road laying and potholes have made it worse for the people.
A few years ago, Vaisakh alias Pakku, a line production manager in films and web series, jumped a rather big pothole on the Vytilla-Pettah road of Kochi, one night after it rained. The hole was filled with rainwater and it was not visible from afar. He fell and fractured his thumb. “But the problem is when such accidents happen, the blame usually falls on you. People think you were overspeeding and that’s why it happened,” Pakku says.
But this was more than three years ago, he says, and some of the roads are better now. However, like Krishna pointed out, the same roads that get repaired are once again found with holes and cracks all over.
Blogger and make-up artist Aaziya Shafi, who founded a group called Women of Kochi, had held a campaign called Walk for Better Roads a little after the death of Umesh Kumar. She told The New Indian Express about a friend who had a miscarriage while travelling through the Kundannoor road in Kochi.
It is not just Kochi of course. Potholes have a way of appearing just about everywhere in Kerala, a spotless road becoming something of a dream for most commuters.
“I had a near-death situation on my way back to Kerala from Bengaluru one day, a little before COVID-19 struck. It was somewhere near Mananthavady in Wayanad. The road was all good and empty and I was at around 60-70 (km/hour) on my bike and there was a portion, around 100 metres long, broken. I didn't see it, I couldn't hit the brakes. Thought I was going to die. But somehow escaped!” says Kochi-based entrepreneur Arjun Azad.
It was daytime then. What shocked Arjun was that this had been a good road before. “It is the unexpectedness of it that catches you off guard.”
The see-saw pothole ride through a Kowdiar road in Thiruvananthapuram #potholes pic.twitter.com/783TfifUj0
— Cris (@cristweets) September 19, 2021
Otherwise you expect most roads to have potholes, especially after it rains. Commuters in Kerala somehow seem adept in learning this trick, of expecting a road to suddenly show up with potholes and expertly avoiding them even as they seem hell-bent on breaking most traffic rules.
Sreekanth Sivadasan, a freelance photographer, was however not so lucky. “I tried to evade a pothole on the Perunthalmanna-Ottappalam stretch while riding my motorbike from Kozhikode last year. But it threw me off the bike and I lost my consciousness. Someone took me to the hospital and I woke up with stitches all over my hands.”
The capital's no better. In June 2019, the Kerala State Human Rights Commission (KSHRC) had asked the Road Fund Board why there were so many new potholes on a road (Ulloor-Medical College) that was fixed just months ago. The KSHRC chairman had at the time remarked that there were 15 new deadly potholes on the stretch.
A resident in Thiruvananthapuram said that at one point the Kalakaumudi Lane would turn into "Kalakamudi Lake" especially after it rained. Auto rickshaws refuse to drop you when you mention the name. As of now, the road has been fixed again, says the resident.
Only, fixed potholes have a way of returning stronger, as we witnessed in several of the reports above. It is also not a pothole-only problem. Broken concrete slabs – so discreet that they often swallow legs of unsuspecting walkers – and unmarked giant hubs are a whole other problem.