A ₹150 crore civic tender linked to thermoplastic road-marking work in Mumbai has been cancelled, and the move has been viewed as another instance in which concerns over procurement practices within the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation have been brought into public focus. The contract had been planned for the application of thermoplastic paint on roads across the city, where improved durability and stronger night-time reflectivity were expected to be achieved. Greater visibility of lane markings and zebra crossings had been considered one of the likely advantages, and some improvement in road safety had also been anticipated.
However, controversy was triggered after the structure of the tender was questioned by Mumbai BJP chief Ameet Satam. Objections were raised over the decision by which ₹50 crore each had been assigned to the city, eastern suburbs and western suburbs. It was argued by him that such a division could not be justified because the western suburbs were known to have a road network nearly three times larger than the other two regions. The allocation was described by him as “arbitrary and lacked proper analysis,” and this criticism was placed at the centre of the complaint that was later submitted to the municipal administration.
Further doubts were also expressed over the absence of a cost-per-kilometre benchmark in the tender document. This omission was said to have weakened transparency and raised suspicion over how the pricing had been worked out. It was alleged by Satam that “cartelisation may be at play,” and the tender process was therefore presented not merely as flawed in design, but as potentially vulnerable to manipulation. Attention was also drawn to the fact that the work had been floated separately despite the BMC already being engaged in a ₹10,000 crore cement concretisation programme. Under that larger initiative, 324 km of roads in Phase I and 377 km in Phase II have been taken up as part of the city’s effort to make its 2,050-km road network pothole-free. It was therefore asked why road-marking work had not been integrated into that larger programme.
A wider institutional issue was also highlighted during the controversy. It was alleged that some civic projects were often first imagined by contractors in coordination with officials and were then formalised through tenders that suited select interests. That pattern was criticised sharply, and it was said by Satam that the practice should be “completely eliminated.” It was further stated by him that public works should be conceptualised by elected representatives and the civic administration, not by contractors, and that “there is a dire need to make our systems citizen-centric rather than contractor-centric.”
After the complaint had been made to municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani, the matter was also taken up by mayor Ritu Tawde. Action was subsequently taken, and the tender was cancelled by the BMC. The cancellation was then reflected on the civic body’s e-procurement portal. No comment was made available from officials of the road and traffic department.
This development has not been seen as an isolated one. Earlier in the same month, a ₹385 crore bollard installation contract had also been scrapped after it had been alleged that the tender was “tailor-made” for a particular contractor. In another case, the procurement of 27 essential items for municipal school students, including uniforms, shoes and stationery, was shifted to the Government e-Marketplace portal instead of being routed through contractors. Through these repeated interventions, greater scrutiny has been placed on how civic tenders are framed, who benefits from them, and whether public administration in Mumbai is being made more transparent and accountable.