Pothole on Delhi-Mumbai Expressway: Company fired junior employee

An employee who claimed to be a part of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway project was fired after he stated that rats were responsible for the caving in the portion of the road in Rajasthan's Dausa district.

The employee, claiming to be the Maintenance Manager, was a junior employee of the firm, KCC Buildcon clarified the situation in a letter to the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).

The firm stated that the comment was made by a junior employee who had no technical understanding regarding the project and confirmed that he had been terminated from the company. "The employee is not the maintenance manager; comments made were not based on technical understanding," the company stated in the letter.

The fired employee told the media that It’s likely that a rat or some small animal dug a hole, allowing water to seep through,

Meanwhile, as per the project director of the expressway in Dausa, Balveer Yadav, the road caved in due to a water leak. As soon as the contractor got information about the matter, he immediately barricaded the area, and the pothole was repaired, Yadav said.

The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, spanning 1,386 kilometers, is the country's longest expressway, designed to cut travel time between the two cities from 24 hours to just 12–13 hours.  As of July 31, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari informed the Rajya Sabha that 80 percent of the project is complete, with at least one more year required for its full completion.