Concreting all roads to take longer than planned, BMC admits

Citizens cross the street at Parel on July 16. Representation Pic/Ashish Raje

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is yet to award a contract for concreting roads. The civic administrator told the high court in September last year that the BMC would turn all roads into concrete ones within two and half years. But going by the current pace of the work, this seems impossible.

The total length of the city's road network is 2,050 km and concrete roads account for 990 km. The BMC started concreting 210 km of roads in January 2022 and awarded contracts for concreting 397 km in February and March 2023 at the cost of Rs 6,080 crore, excluding 18 per cent GST.

The civic body had claimed that it would float another tender for the rest of the roads to be concreted (approximately 450 km) by May 2023, but this did not happen. P Velrasu, additional commissioner, BMC, told the media, "The current work of roads will take two years. The process of floating another tender is going on but it will take time."

He added, "The BMC is looking at the option of adopting pre-constructed road technology where pre-cast concrete slabs are used to build roads. It will increase the speed of construction."

I S Chahal, the administrator, assured the high court on September 30, 2022, that all the roads in the city will be concreted in the next two and half years.
A BMC official said that out of 910 roads (with a total length of 397 km) which were given for concreting in February, only 38 (less than 4 per cent) were completed before the monsoon but the civic body hasn't provided names or locations of these roads.

As per BMCs claim, 166 km of roads were concreted in 2022-23. In 2021-22, 163 km of cement concrete and 33 km asphalt roads were constructed. In 2020-21, the figures were 66 km and 57 km respectively. Though the BMC doesn't have a dearth of money, the speed of the construction of roads depends upon several factors such as the shifting of utility ducts and obtaining permission to close roads, which are often congested, simultaneously.

Even the 2023-24 budget does not allow for the concreting of all roads within the next two years. The budget provides R2,825 crore for roads and the traffic department for footpath work, beautification of the Gateway of India, charging stations at public parking areas, multi-level mechanical parking and Mumbai Parking Authority. Generally, every year the department is allotted over Rs 2,000 crore.

Anil Galgali, an activist, said, "The BMC must share its action plan for concreting roads and the current status of the work online. There is no need to get information via the RTI Act every time. Besides, there has to be a board on every construction site to provide information about which work is going on, the name of the contractor and the deadline. There are no corporators, so it is the duty of the administrator to give information to the public as the BMC is supposed to work for citizens."