Road Monitoring Committee

Appointed by Hon'ble Bombay High Court by Order dated 4 October 2006

22 April 2007

The Road Monitoring Committee (RMC) is happy to have received a good many citizen response to an appeal for volunteers for monitoring conditions of roads in the cities of Mumbai (MCGM) and Thane (TMC). Our apologies for the delay in responding to the keenness you have shown to contribute efforts to improve conditions of roads in MCGM & TMC areas. While we were engaged in the preparation of the Guidelines Document for Citizens, as you have been aware, the avenue to receive complaints and suggestions have been open right from the day RMC came into operation on 1 November 2006.

The five honorary members of the committee have been attending to the Complaints and Suggestions from the citizens and making site visits and holding fortnightly meetings. RMC has also submitted its first quarterly report (Nov. 06 - Jan 07) to the Hon'ble Bombay High Court. RMC will keep you posted on further initiatives and developments through this internet group, "http://groups.google.com/group/mumbairoadsvolunteer".

This is an initiative that will enable monitoring of Roads ( to be read as Footpaths, Carriageways and any matters related to roads such as drains, fire hydrants ... ) and get the Primary Agencies (MCGM, TMC, MMRDA, MSRDC & PWD) carryout repair and reconstruction of roads to the specifications of the Contract and good engineering practices. A guideline document, suitable for an ordinary non technical citizen, has been prepared by us extracting relevant portions from the Primary Agency Guidelines / Specifications / Contract Documents which are followed by them. This has been made available on the website "http://mumbairoads.googlepages.com" as well as on uploaded files of this internet group: "http://groups.google.com/group/mumbairoadsvolunteer"

Your commitment of time and effort on Volunteering depends solely upon you and it is flexible. Seldom will we call upon you to verify anything in addition to what you have communicated to us in the course of this initiative.

Because of expected volumes of responses from numerous Volunteers, we have to be brief and pointed. For this purpose a form has been prepared which is part of the Guideline Document. This form is also separately uploaded on the website as well as on group files folder. This should be used for communicating your Observations and Report to the Engineer-in-Charge of the Contractor as well as the Agency. A copy to us should also be sent for our record and follow-up actions.

Your task under RMC initiative goes only upto Observing and Reporting as has been explained in the Guidelines Document. You may pursue matters further, under Right To Information Act (RTI Act) or as you may deem fit as an individual citizen. Under RMC Guidelines, the objective is to identify the individuals responsible for not following specifications and hold them accountable for any mishap or inferior quality of work.

You will realise that you will be required to provide barely one hour a week in carrying out your volunteering work. What is actually expected from you is that you issue notice to the Engineer-in-Charge of a work site where you find that work is not proceeding according to some basic technical specifications, and you send a copy of this notice to RMC for record and follow-up where necessary. We might approach you sometimes to assist us to verify certain things and report to us, but this will be done rarely.

Since you have expressed interest in volunteering and also some of you have been sending your Complaints and Suggestions, it is assumed that we could bank on you in the tasks of monitoring the on going road repairs and reconstruction works. Therefore we have directly made you members of this Google Group. This is not a discussion group, so the fear of getting inundated with emails can be set aside. We will keep communicating with you to barest minimum - perhaps with a weekly newsletter. If you wish to opt out of this group, kindly send email to mumbairoads.volunteer@gmail.com with "Opting Out of Volunteer Group" in the subject band. However we would be happy if you remained part of the group, and remain connected.

Regards

Sudhir Badami
Honorary Member Secretary

Road Monitoring Committee

Website "http://mumbairoads.googlepages.com"

Road Monitoring Volunteer Group 

"http://groups.google.com/group/mumbairoadsvolunteer"

Road Monitoring New Volunteers to register at mumbairoads.volunteer@gmail.com with
"New Volunteer" in the Subject bar.

Volunteers to send their Observations and Reports to mumbairoads.volunteer@gmail.com with "Observations and Report" in the Subject bar.

Citizen Complaints & Suggestions are received at mumbairoads@gmail.com with "Complaints & Suggestions" in the Subject bar.