Click to play videoMumbai: How many times have you driven over newly repaired roads, grinding your teeth wondering if any repairs have actually taken place? Well if you're a Mumbaikar your municipal corporation may just have a solution.
The spinning hands on a dial, red numbers on a timer device, a strange graph on a flickering computer screen and a pressure gauge – is this the secret laboratory of a mad scientist with a burning desire to take over the planet?
Meet the technicians at the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's Materials Testing Laboratory. Their job is to ascertain if material such as concrete slabs and bricks used in road repairs meet the required standards.
The Worli based laboratory has recently undergone an upgrade.
Assistant Engineer Ashok Wakde says, “We got ourselves a new Ductility testing machine and have upgraded our testing equipment."
But Mumbaikars have a thousand questions and doubts already.
Activist Kewal Semlani says, “The samples that are tested at the lab are different from those actually used. Plus the concerned engineer must ensure that work is done in accordance with the specifications laid down."
With BMC elections just over six weeks away and another monsoon coming up in six months time, Mumbaikars will be more interested in what happens to the materials – between the testing laboratories where they get perfect scores – to the roads where they just crack under pressure.
With inputs from Nafisa Islam
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