Nagpur pothole gets a ‘10th birthday’ celebration, road repaired in just a day after viral video

A pothole in Nagpur appears to have found an unusual way to get attention. A content creator marked what he described as the pothole’s “10th birthday” with a humorous social media video, and the damaged stretch at Uday Nagar Square on the Inner Ring Road was repaired soon after the video went viral, a TOI report stated.

Why the pothole became a birthday ‘celebration’

The video was posted by Lokesh Deshmukh, a businessman who deals in e-waste and refurbished electronic goods. The location was familiar to him because he regularly travelled along the road between his home in Manish Nagar and his store in Hudkeshwar.

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According to Deshmukh, he had been seeing the pothole for years and decided to turn his frustration into a social media post. “I would come across this pothole every day and thought, let’s do something about it,” he said. Rather than posting a conventional complaint, Deshmukh gave the pothole a mock birthday celebration, suggesting that it had survived for about a decade. The unusual approach struck a chord online.

Viral video brings other civic complaints

Deshmukh said the video prompted around 300 messages from people after it began circulating. Many of those who contacted him did not just discuss the pothole. They pointed him towards other roads and civic problems that they wanted authorities to notice. “About 99% of the people appreciated what I did,” he said.

Deshmukh said he had previously engaged in what he described as “armchair activism”, commenting on public issues online without taking the next step. This time, he decided to use his own social media platform to draw attention to a problem he encountered regularly. He said he was also inspired by Pune civic activist Santosh Pandit, whose work in highlighting local issues had caught his attention.

Road repaired after video goes viral

The response at the pothole site was quick. Deshmukh said a friend living nearby informed him that repair work had begun. He subsequently visited the spot and recorded another video thanking the authorities for addressing the damaged stretch. Deshmukh said he has already identified other civic issues, including littering and public drinking in some areas, that he intends to highlight through his social media content. He also believes citizens need a simpler way to bring such problems to the attention of civic departments. One suggestion he raised was the creation of an ombudsman or an easily accessible grievance-redressal system.

PWD gives a different account

While the viral video drew attention to the repair, the Public Works Department (PWD) said the work should not be directly attributed to the social media post. A PWD official told TOI that the stretch was already covered under the department's annual maintenance contract (AMC) programme.

“The repair was carried out under funds released through the AMC. There were other spots as well that we repaired, and we came across the video later,” the official said.

That means the viral video and the repair happened around the same time, but the department's account does not establish that the social media post triggered the work. For Deshmukh, however, the episode still demonstrated the value of citizens drawing attention to problems they encounter every day. The pothole may have started as a joke about a decade of neglect, but its unusual “birthday” ended up putting a routine road problem in the spotlight.