To ensure good quality of cement concrete roads is being developed in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) appointed the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay as a third party quality control agency.
In an official statement, the BMC said that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the IIT Bombay for checking the quality of cement concrete road works.
It was signed in the presence of BMC Commissioner and Administrator Bhushan Gagrani and Additional Municipal Commissioner (Projects) Abhijit Bangar. It was attended by officials from the BMC and IIT, including the institute director Prof K V Krishna Rao, and head of the department of civil engineering of the institute Prof Solomon Debbarma.
Recently, civic authorities received complaints of cracks on newly concreted roads. While these issues were fixed, the BMC decided to carry out strict quality audits of the roads concreted.
The premier engineering institute located in Powai will conduct quality control checks of the cement concrete road works, including cube tests, core tests, slump cone tests, durability tests and field density tests.
There are already third-party auditors, but BMC decided to appoint IIT-B for the task. The IIT will conduct surprise visits, site inspections and hold feedback sessions to ensure high-quality work, the release said.
Meanwhile, an official from the roads department said, “IIT is a big name in quality assurance. Their involvement will put additional pressure on the contractor to deliver quality work.”
Civic chief Gagrani added that the IIT-B experts will provide guidance to improve and maintain road quality, and to complete the work at a faster pace.
The civic body has initiated cement concretisation of the 701-km-long roads in the city in two phases – 392 km long roads in the first phase and 309 km in the second.
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