After a pothole cost vegetable vendor Dadarao Bilhore his son’s life, he began filling potholes in Mumbai. “I lost my own son. But no one else should lose theirs. So I took one step forward and slowly started filling potholes. I didn’t cry, I learnt to fight,” shared Dadarao Bilhore.

Even as the grief of losing their son was tearing them apart, Dadarao decided to do something nobody expected. Armed with broken paver blocks, gravel, stones and shovel, he started filling every pothole he witnessed within one month of Prakash’s(his son) passing.

Since August 2015 to July 2018, he had filled over 554 potholes and has been given the moniker ‘Pothole Dada of Mumbai’.

When someone asked me why I fill potholes I tell them, I have lost my kid, I don’t want you to lose yours. It is a tribute to my son. Whenever I fill one pothole, I feel I have saved someone. My son didn’t return, but somebody else’s son will go home safe. So what if my clothes get stained, or my arms get muddy? It doesn’t matter.”

Another outcome of Bilhore’s efforts was the ‘Fill in the Potholes Project’, a citizen group in Mumbai which developed a mobile app – Spothole and has been willing to collaborate with BMC, to fill the potholes together.

The app uses three basic features already available in any smartphone — mobile camera, GPS and 3G Internet and thus enables citizens to report the location of a pothole along with the photo, which accomplishes half the job. All that the BMC has to do is fill those potholes spotted by the citizens.

Today, hundreds of people are joining Dadarao in his mission of making not just Mumbai, but also India pothole free, one of whom is Hyderabad’s renowned senior citizen and retired railway employee, Bala Gangadhar Tilak. He has filled 1,500 potholes till date and was bestowed the title of being the ‘Pride of Telangana’.

source: https://www.thebetterindia.com/152280/mumbaikar-potholes-dadarao-bilhore/