BJP MLA Ashish Shelar says Rs 1,000 crore fraud in Coastal Road project

A tunnel for the Coastal Road project drilled by BMC’s machine Mavala

A day after the BMC and Shiv Sena Minister Aaditya Thackeray tweeted about achieving a milestone in the Coastal Road project, BJP legislator Ashish Shelar on Monday alleged Rs 1,000 crore corruption in the project. The MLA has asked the chief minister to appoint a special investigation team to probe into the alleged irregularities. Shelar's party was instrumental in helping BMC get all the permissions for the Rs 12,700-crore project when the Shiv Sena and BJP were in alliance.

Shelar told the media that fraud and illegalities of Rs 684 crore for 33 lakh tonnes of reclamation filling material have been observed and claimed that the details are tied to the project's Package 1 worth Rs 5,290.54 crore for October 2018 to December 2020. "If the overall Coastal Road project cost including Package 2 and Package 4 of the tenders are also accounted for, this scam could well be over Rs 1,000 crore," he said.

BJP MLA Ashish Shelar

On Sunday, the BMC said its tunnel boring machine, Mavala, completed tunnelling of 1 km. The entire tunnel stretch will be 2 km. Explaining the alleged illegalities in Package 1, he said, "These are mainly royalty theft of over Rs 437 crore on 33 lakh tonnes of filling reclamation material used by the contractor. This essentially means the licensed mining agencies were not included while acquiring the reclamation materials." He also said that substandard material has been used for the project.

He said a part of the irregularities in Package 1 amounts to Rs 48 crore spent to acquire high-density filling material in violation of BMC's own tender conditions. He said, "Further, there was a loss of government revenues of about Rs 81 crore due to non-levying of penalty for overloading by Mumbai and Maharashtra traffic police besides allowing illegal transporting of overloaded construction material in violation of Motor Vehicle Act." Shelar alleged that 35,000 bogus trips were shown. "Is this true? Loss and fraud on BMC due to overloading is Rs 17.86 crore." Shelar said, "Is the standing committee too involved in all of this as Shiv Sena rules the civic body. I have written a detailed letter to the municipal commissioner asking him to check the facts that BJP has submitted. I am also sure that the CM will take cognisance of my complaints and address this corruption."

BMC denies charges

Responding to the allegations, a BMC press statement said, "The stone material required for reclamation has been procured from the quarries approved by the consultant. Royalties are mutually paid by the mine owners, thus there is no Royalty theft. The material used for filling is as per the specification in the contract and has been tested from time to time. So the question of additional recovery does not arise. The issue of fines imposed by the traffic police is not related to the corporation." On the alleged use of substandard materials, the civic body said that no such thing was done and all the allegations are baseless.

Rs 12,700
Cost of the Coastal Road project