Mumbai: Now, city roads will be quality checked by third-party auditors

Road work is carried out at Santacruz Koliwada on November 1, 2022. Pic/Nimesh Dave

The BMC administration is up to its old tricks again. Despite bad experiences with third-party auditors for quality maintenance supervision, the civic body has yet again decided to appoint them, this time to assess road resurfacing projects. Why? Ostensibly because BMC engineers are busy preparing tenders and attending meetings. Seven project management agencies have been finalised to audit road resurfacing work and trench repairs. According to a proposal, a copy of which is with mid-day, the BMC will spend Rs 3.22 crore of public money on this exercise.

These auditors are also looking into ongoing road repair and trench repair works. The BMC has started road resurfacing work worth Rs 161.48 crore, and an order in connection with this was issued three months ago.

Work takes place at Sainath Nagar, Ghatkopar West. File pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

As mentioned in the proposal, BMC had appointed project management agencies (PMAs) to conduct a third-party audit of road work during 2013 and 2015. But these agencies were unable to do quality work and failed to live up to the expectations of the civic body and were heavily criticised. The BMC has claimed that errors pertaining to the agencies have been fixed.

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However, the PMAs have been appointed again, as junior engineers and assistant engineers who are responsible for actually supervising road works are busy making
drafts of tenders and estimate sheets, addressing grievances, replying RTIs, and attending meetings. "Due to this, engineers are not getting quality time to supervise road work in the city due to which the BMC has now decided to appoint PMAs as a third-party auditor," the proposal read.

Rajesh Gupta, a civic expert, said, "There is nothing wrong with doing a third-party audit. But it is wrong to hand over all the responsibility to a private company because civic engineers do not have the time. It is necessary that BMC engineers supervise projects. It will not do to hand over all the responsibility to private companies."

Ravi Raja, former opposition leader in the BMC, also said it was not inherently wrong to opt for a third-party audit, but added, "What is the use of selecting auditors after three months have passed? Also, if the quality of roads is not maintained despite appointing them, the company concerned should be blacklisted and a case should be filed. There was a scam in road repairs while a third-party auditor was around."

Rs 3.22cr
Amount that will be spent on audits

7
No. of PMAs finalised by BMC