Blow to BMC plan as contractors refuse to clean up minor nullahs

Desilting work of the city's minor nullahs to start in April first week. FILE PIC

Two years have passed since an inquiry into the city's nulla desilting work revealed malpractices and a loss of Rs 35 crore to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), but it seems that the civic body is still paying the price for it. Even after inviting tenders for cleaning of minor nullahs and box-drains as part of the pre-monsoon work three times, no contractor has shown interest in the desilting work.

BMC has already issued work order for cleaning major nullahs. FILE PIC

Not interested
Sources are of the opinion that the contractors' disinterest may impact the cleaning process of the 425-km stretch of minor nullahs in 15 wards, which in turn may lead to flooding during monsoon. However, at a meeting held by the storm water drains department with municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta on Tuesday, it was decided that the work would be assigned to ward-level contractors, just the way it was done last year.

Running late
Civic officials said that the work that was supposed to start in March would start in the first week of April and needs to be completed by May 30. "Inviting the tenders thrice and waiting for the contractors to respond took up a lot of time. As a result, we are running late by 15 days," said a senior civic official.

Speaking to mid-day, chief engineer of the storm water drains department Laxman Vhatkar said, "We have no option but to rely on the ward-level contractors. Even for the transportation of silt, we will take help from an NGO, which works for the slum sanitation project at the ward level. A tender worth Rs 3.5 crore has been allotted for the transportation work."

On track
Meanwhile, sources said that the civic body has already given work order for cleaning of the 350-km stretch of major nullahs in the city. Even the cleaning of Mithi river is scheduled to start next month.