The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) administration has prepared to invite tenders for the remaining 400 km of road works while the earlier works worth 6000 crores of road concreting have already been stalled. A draft is being prepared for the tenders for this work and the tenders will be floated in the next three weeks. The estimated cost of this work is around seven thousand crores. The controversial road contractor in the city is likely to be given this week's hearing.
Resolving to make Mumbai's roads pothole-free in the next two years, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had directed the municipal administration to cement concrete for all the roads. Tenders were invited for works worth 6,078 crores. Five nominated contractors were selected from it and work orders were given to the contractors in the month of January. In the month of January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the road works. These road works are not yet completed. Also, the contract of the road contractor in the city area was canceled as he did not start any work and the matter is currently in court. In such a situation, the civic body has now started preparing to call for tenders for concreting another 400 km of roads. Tenders will be invited in the next three weeks. It is being discussed that the state government is trying to do its land worship by awarding the remaining road contracts before the Lok Sabha elections.
Every year during the rainy season, Mumbai's roads get potholes, so the municipality had undertaken a long-term program of cement concreting of the roads. Under that, cement concreting of roads was done in phases every year. Mumbai has a total of about 2000 km of roads, of which fifty percent of the roads have been concretised. While in the financial year 2021-22, the municipality had undertaken works of 236 km worth 2200 crores. These works were approved before the expiry of the term of the municipality. These works were started from October 2022. Those works are still ongoing. After the coup d'état in the state last year, in November 2022, tenders were once again called for the works of 910 roads of 397 km worth 6,078 crores for the first time.
The city will call the contractor for a hearing
A notice was issued to the contractor and his contract was also canceled as no road work was started in the city area. Therefore, the road works in the city area in the new tender are at a standstill. The contractor has approached the court. The court has ordered the municipal administration to hear the contractor and hear his statement. A deadline of 31 January has been given for that. The proposal for this hearing has been sent to Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal and the officers will be appointed and the hearing will be held within a week, said Additional Commissioner P Velrasu.
Total roads in Mumbai- About 2000 km
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