28 July,2024 08:12 AM IST | Mumbai | Prajakta Kasale
A crater-ridden stretch near Dadar station on July 20. Pic/Shadab Khan
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is going slow while awarding contracts for the concreting of roads. Though hardly 25 per cent work that had been awarded to firms has been completed, tenders were invited in February and bids were opened in April. The corporation, however, hasn't issued work orders yet. Even the SoBo road contract in the previous year hasn't been finalised yet.
Pothole-ridden roads are an annual woe for Mumbaikars during the monsoon season. After the public outrage, the Bombay High Court asked then-civic chief Iqbal Singh Chahal to explain the civic body's side on September 30, 2022. The BMC assured the court that it would complete the concreting of all the remaining asphalt roads within a two and half years. Though two years have passed since then, the BMC hasn't reached 30 per cent of its target.
Mumbai's road network spans 2,050 km, with 990 km already concreted by 2021. The BMC had undertaken the concreting of 210 km of the city back in January 2022 and sanctioned a proposal for another 397 km in February 2023 worth Rs 6,080, excluding 18 per cent GST. But one of the contractors - selected for concreting work in SoBo - backed out and the BMC invited tenders worth approximately Rs 1,362 crore for constructing new CC paths collectively measuring 97 km in January 2024. In addition to that, the BMC floated a tender for concreting 400 km of roads in February worth R6,200 crore, excluding 18 per cent GST. The civic body received three bids in the city and the eastern suburbs, and nine in the western suburbs in April. But the process of finalising contractors and issuing work orders hasn't been completed yet.
In the past five years, the average speed of concreting remained around 125 km per year, but despite that, the BMC awarded contracts for almost thrice the capacity. Even this time the BMC was able to complete hardly 25 per cent of 397 km of road works that started last year. Currently, there isn't any work going on due to rainy months and the work will restart only in October after getting permission from the traffic police. "The process of awarding contracts is going on. Even if we issue a work order now, the work can start only after October. There is spillover work from last year that we prioritised for completion. We won't wait for October to take traffic permission and the process of it is already in the pipeline," said a senior official from the BMC.
