Corruption In BMC Making Mumbai's Road Development A Challenge?

Reputable infrastructure firms are being discouraged from participating in the civic body's tenders for cement concreting roads due to widespread corruption in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) Road Department. The big businesses are equipped with the know-how and resources necessary to build the city's cement concrete roadways with superior quality. However, the high extent of corruption and cartelisation keep them from competing for these contracts.

Even with the increasing number of its road contracts, the BMC has consistently been unable to draw reputable businesses to bid on these multi-million dollar projects. Rather, through backdoor ways, the same contractors - some of whom are on a blacklist - continue to obtain contracts.

Former corporators attribute this problem to a concerning relationship between public officials and private contractors, which discourages big businesses from bidding. They claimed that complicated processes, a lot of red tape, and widespread corruption are mostly to blame for the lack of interest shown by respectable businesses.

The BMC has started concreting all of Mumbai's roads since last year. Nevertheless, in the first phase, just 30 per cent of the roadworks in the eastern and western suburbs have been finished. Due to delays, the BMC also terminated a INR 1,600 crore contract with Roadway Solutions India Infrastructure Ltd (RSIIL) for the island city's road concretisation. The second phase's construction, which entails 312 km of concreted roads, is now being monitored. The possibility of awarding the contract to a business that was placed on a blacklist in 2016 for doing subpar work has drawn criticism.

BJP Mumbai President Ashish Shelar criticised the civic body. He posted on X, “For 25 years, Mumbaikars have suffered due to bad road quality & Potholes due to Contractor lobby ! Shocking that BMC awarding INR 1866 crores road concretisation contract to repeat offender & blacklisted firm RPS infra projects.”

He insisted on terminating the agreement and requesting fresh bids.

According to media reports, some large companies had earlier shown interest in these projects, but they have recently withdrawn their interest upon witnessing the continuous reduction in road contracts.

Former BJP corporator Vinod Mishra claimed that the Shiv Sena (UBT), which was in power at the time in the BMC, was also involved in this network. He stated that we were against shortening the contractors' blacklisting time during the BMC standing committee sessions. The oversight and monitoring of administrative activities has been noticeably lacking after the 227 corporators' tenure ended in 2022. Major infrastructure companies are reluctant to participate in BMC projects until the relationship between government officials and contractors is resolved.