With Mumbai on the brink of monsoon and no bidders to repair Eastern Express Highway and Western Express Highway, planning body has invited fresh tenders for repair of the arterial roadways
Tenders are for maintenance of highwaysand for repairs by bituminous treatment on main carriageway and service roads. Representation Pic
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With monsoon clouds circling city skies, MMRDA has no one to do their bidding to fill potholes that dot arterial roadways like the Western Express Highway (WEH) and Eastern Express Highway (EEH). The planning authority on June 2 invited two tenders – one for repair and maintenance during monsoon and another for the repairs by bituminous treatment to the main carriageway and service roads.
EEH is now known as Eastern Urban Road, while WEH is Western Urban Road, after the highways were de-notified by PWD and handed over to MMRDA. The interested contractors will be working on a six-month deadline for the repair and maintenance works, which includes monsoon months.
Also read: As rains approach Mumbai, Western and Eastern Express Highways still not monsoon-ready
For the repairs by bituminous treatment to the main carriageway and service roads, interested contractors will have to submit their bids by June 6 and the work will have to be completed in 15 days.
'Confident of good response'
Confirming the development, MMRDA joint project director Dilip Kawatkar said, "We have once again invited tenders for the repair and maintenance of the roads and we are confident of getting a good response and the work will be completed in the stipulated time."
Also read - Mumbai: Western and Eastern Express Highways might not be pothole-free before rains
"We will be spending around '11 crore on both the urban roads and work will be completed in six months. MMRDA will be spending '3.57 crore on eastern urban road and '7.43 crore on western urban road," said an MMRDA official. The amount to be paid is only for the repairs that would be done in monsoon. The contractors have been asked to submit the bids by June 23. As for the bituminous repairs, '7.92 crore will be spent, of which '6.57 crore is for WEH and '1.35 crore is for EEH.
No bidding
After taking over the highways that are used by over one lakh vehicles daily, MMRDA had said it would see to it that they are repaired and maintained properly. But the authority did not get any response from the bidders as some of them felt the time frame given for the repairs was very less.
Also read - Mumbai: MMRDA to spend Rs 8 cr for pothole-free roads
Sources from MMRDA said the reason why bidders are not coming forward is because of the shutting down of stone quarries in Thane after a ban on them by NGT on March 30, after which there has been a shortage of stone material used for roads and contractors have to shell extra to procure the material from Raigad and Palghar.
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