Maharashtra Council adjourned after ruckus over Mumbai-Goa highway work

Representational Pic/File/PTI

The Maharashtra Legislative Council was adjourned for an hour on Friday following commotion over the work on the Mumbai-Goa highway, reported the PTI.

According to the PTI, the disruption started in the upper house of the state legislature after NCP legislator Vikram Kale raised concerns over the delay in the work 'four-laning and concretisation' on the busy highway.

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Responding to Vikram Kale, Public Works Department Minister Ravindra Chavan said, "The construction work on the Panvel-Indapur stretch is 72 per cent complete. The progress is 85 per cent between Indapur and Zarap."

The minister assured the legislative council that the remaining work is scheduled for completion by December this year.

Ravindra Chavan also acknowledged that some contractors, banned by the state government for malpractice, had attempted to halt the work on the 555-km-long Mumbai-Goa highway. He said a few state officials were also involved in these incidents, according to the PTI.

Opposition leaders from the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP SP) and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) voiced their dissatisfaction, claiming that the state was not taking adequate action against the erring contractors.

When ruckus prevailed despite her intervention, Deputy Chairperson Neelam Gorhe adjourned the house for an hour till the beginning of the budget presentation.

Meanwhile, according to the news reports, the 84 kilometers are split up into two packages. Over 85 per cent of the 42.3 km of package one, which runs from Panvel to Kasu, have been physically completed.

Approximately 39 km of the 40 km of concreted roads have been finished.

The package has completed around 9 km of the 23.7 km of parallel service road concreting. Furthermore, some of the work on the vehicle underpass at Gadab in Pen taluka is moving forward, the news reports suggest.

The second package runs 42.3 kilometers and travels from Kasu to Indapur. The 26.67 km of four-lane work was finished by the previous contractor. A contract was given to Kalyan Toll Infra Pvt Ltd for the remaining work. As of right now, roughly 45 per cent of this package's physical work has been finished, the news reports said.

(with PTI inputs)