Roads that break within a few years
Potholes killed 2,385 people in 2024, by the Road Ministry's count. Most road contracts go to the lowest bidder, and there is no public record of how each contractor's roads held up.
Open for ideas, evidence and questions.
What we know
The Road Ministry counted 1,856 pothole deaths in 2022, 2,161 in 2023 and 2,385 in 2024, and 9,438 over five years. A death is counted only when the police record a pothole as the cause. In October 2025 the Bombay High Court ordered ₹6 lakh compensation for each death from a pothole or open manhole, to be recovered from the officials or contractors responsible.
Most public road contracts go to the lowest bidder (L1), often far below the estimated cost. Selection on quality and cost together is allowed but rarely used. Contractors must repair defects at their own cost during a defect liability period, usually up to five years.
Some checks exist. Since 2021 the National Highways Authority of India has required drone video of its projects, and in October 2025 it began tendering 3D laser survey vehicles to scan 20,933 km of national highways for cracks, potholes and patches every six months. Rural roads under PMGSY go through three tiers of quality inspection and five years of tracked maintenance. State and city roads, which make up most of the network, follow each body's own rules.
Cameras only see the surface. Other tests check what lies under it. Ground-penetrating radar, driven at traffic speed, measures the thickness of each layer, so a road laid thinner than the contract says shows up. A falling-weight deflectometer drops a weight on the road and measures how much it bends, which reveals weak layers below. Infrared cameras on the paver map the temperature of fresh asphalt, because patches laid too cold do not compact and crack early. Some US states, such as Texas, write these thermal profiles into their road specifications.
Pune's Jangli Maharaj Road is often cited as the exception. Recondo, a Mumbai firm, relaid a 2.3 km stretch with hot-mix asphalt and handed it over in January 1976, promising to rebuild it free if it needed repairs within ten years. It is still reported to have stayed largely free of potholes for decades. The work was reportedly given without an open tender, and the firm got no further road work in Pune. Accounts of why differ.
Open questions
- Who built the main road near you, when was it last relaid, and did the contractor repair it free when it broke within the defect liability period?
- How much does your city spend on potholes each year, and how often is the same stretch repaired?
- Could a contract like JM Road's, a long guarantee in place of the lowest price, be awarded under today's tender rules?
- What would a public scorecard for road contractors need, such as radar and deflection results for each stretch, defects found, repairs made under guarantee and blacklisting?
- Does your state's PWD or city test new roads with radar, deflection or thermal scans before paying the contractor, and are the results public?
- How much of the dust on your roads comes from broken surfaces, unpaved edges, digging by utilities and uncovered trucks?
- Which Indian cities or states have roads that last, and what do they do differently?
Sources
- ThePrint: pothole deaths up 53% in five years (Road Ministry data)
- Bar and Bench: Bombay High Court orders ₹6 lakh for pothole deaths
- Construction World: the L1 trap
- NHAI: network survey vehicles for 20,933 km (October 2025)
- Governance Now: drone surveys mandatory on national highway projects
- FHWA: paver-mounted thermal profiler for asphalt
- Equipment World: fighting thermal segregation
- Punekar News: why JM Road hasn't seen a pothole in 50 years
- Free Press Journal: how JM Road was built
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