Mumbai: 6 months before monsoon, BMC floats tenders for road repairs

It seems the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is serious about pacing up road repairs, since a tender worth Rs 40 crore for pre-monsoon works has already been floated this month, giving the civic authority a head-start of roughly three months.

As it goes, it is for the first time that such a pre-monsoon tender, for all of the city's seven zones, has come out in December itself. It is usually reserved for the months of February and March. The BMC has started on the new module this year itself, and expects that the spending on roads would cross Rs 1,000 crore till the end of March.

While the roadworks will not conclude before March, the corporation is geared to reinforce the roads before monsoon. By November this year, it had already used up R750 crore of the R2,500 crore funds allotted as part of the roads budget in the current fiscal, in contrast to last financial year when the overall amount spent by March was Rs 750 crore.

However, while 70 per cent of the city's roads have been turned inside out in the name of repairs and resurfacing, when it comes to spending and paying off, the BMC seems to take it slow, given the fraction of the current budget spent till November.

A civic officer said, after requesting anonymity, "We have to dig roads in order to repair them. That is how we can deliver good roads, and preparing for the pre-monsoon work is in our long-term plan for having good roads."

Additional Municipal Commissioner S V R Srinivas said, "For the first time, we have floated the tenders in this month, as we hope to open packets and issue work orders before February, so that the work rather than the process of issuing tenders may begin by March."