India, May 31 -- "Miles to go." is how the civic administration should be signing off on its ambitious road concretisation initiative as it fails to meet its May 31 deadline on Saturday.

Despite the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)'s tall claims, several stretches of the city's roads remain incomplete. According to the BMC's data, only just over half - 54.68% - of roads in Phase 2 have been completed, while 82.23% of roads taken up in Phase 1 have been concretised. This works out to 811 roads in Phase 2 and 574 roads in Phase 1 that have been wrapped up. Work on the rest will resume, or start, after the monsoon.

But the real measure of progress remains unclear as the BMC is yet to release data on the length of roads concreted - ...