India, July 19 -- The death of 27-year-old factory worker Rajdeep Singh, whose motorcycle skidded into a waterlogged pothole in Mohali's Phase 8B Industrial Area, is not an isolated "accident". It is a case of institutional negligence. A sole breadwinner lost his life to a crater hidden beneath a murky pool of rainwater-a preventable trap created by civic machinery that slept through a three-month pre-monsoon window. The problem spans the entire tricity. Several Mohali roads, particularly major intersections, are riddled with potholes, causing traffic snarls and safety hazards. Commuters in Chandigarh and Panchkula are forced to manoeuvre similar obstacle courses after every downpour while authorities look the other way. The root cause is a combination of substandard road-carpeting material, a lack of regular inspections, and no quality audits. The inevitable outcome is bureaucratic finger-pointing. In Rajdeep's case, the Mohali Municipal Corporation and the Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation (PSIEC) are locked in a classic tussle over a memorandum of understanding (MoU), debating road ownership while a citizen paid the ultimate price. To stop this recurring seasonal nightmare, strict accountability must be fixed. Section 198A of the Motor Vehicles Act empowers the law to hold authorities liable for maintenance failures. It is time the police register FIRs naming specific, responsible engineers when a road failure results in death. Tricity roads should be mapped using high-resolution geo-tagging before June, and financial penalties must be levied on contractors whose stretches disintegrate within the defect liability period. Residents pay taxes; they deserve roads that endure the monsoon, not superficial, sand-filled patches that wash away overnight, leaving behind fatal craters....