16 months after issuing order, only 9% road concretisation work done in Mumbai

While 5 companies were awarded the declaration successful February 2023 to concretise the roads, information further shows that lone 1 of the 5 companies has completed much than 10 per cent enactment by June 10 this year.

Three companies completed lone betwixt 4 and 7 per cent of the magnitude of the roadworthy task they were awarded.

The declaration of the 5th institution — Roadway Solutions India Infra Ltd (RSIIL) — was terminated by BMC successful October 2023, earlier the enactment started.

The concretisation of 128 roads of the full people of 698 successful the suburbs person been completed— 109 are successful the occidental suburbs, portion 19 are successful the eastbound suburbs.

After becoming the main curate successful June 2022, Shinde had announced plans to marque Mumbai roads pothole-free wrong 2 years by concretising the existing asphalt roads.

Following this, the civic assemblage had invited tenders amounting to Rs 6,079 crore to concretise 389 km of roads successful the archetypal phase.

A BMC authoritative said that arsenic per the declaration conditions the task has to beryllium completed successful 36 months, excluding monsoon, which ends astatine February, 2026.

The Mumbai presently has a roadworthy web of 2,050 km of which 1,224 km is already concretised.

The enactment orders for the mega roadworthy concretisation task amounting to Rs 6,079 crore were issued astir happened astir a period aft Prime Minister Narendra Modi carried retired ‘Bhoomi-Poojan’ during a nationalist rally astatine Mumbai’s BKC crushed connected January 19, 2023.

Initially, BMC had announced plans to concretise 910 roads successful Mumbai, measuring a full magnitude of 389 km.

However, since the declaration for starting the enactment astatine land metropolis was revoked by the civic body, the authorities person been capable to transportation retired enactment lone successful the eastbound and occidental suburbs and the full people of concretising the roads was revised to 324 km.

Sources successful BMC said that since the concretisation enactment could not take-off during monsoon play past year, each the contractors were entrusted lone with the work of repairing and maintaining the atrocious patches connected the roads that autumn nether their assemblage of work.

Since Mumbai records dense rainfall during the monsoon, each civilian and infrastructure related works are stalled betwixt June and October.

Civic officials maintained that adjacent though the enactment orders were issued to the contractors successful February 2023, existent enactment could lone statesman aft October.

In the affidavit submitted to the Bombay High Court (HC) successful February, 2024, the BMC had said that betwixt April and June, 20 per cent of the enactment would beryllium completed.

“Since the existent enactment could lone commencement by October past year, it took immoderate clip for these companies to get NOC from the postulation department. Under this project, we volition concretise the already existing asphalt roads successful Mumbai, which successful crook volition not lone forestall emergence of potholes and but besides volition summation their beingness span,” said Abhijit Bangar, further municipal commissioner (Projects), BMC.

“We person issued enactment orders to contractors for the 2nd signifier of roadworthy concretisation enactment and by May 31, 2025, astir 200 km of Mumbai roads volition beryllium concretised,” helium added.

Stating that astir of the contractor firms, who person been awarded the enactment orders, are caller successful this area, the authoritative said that they instrumentality their clip to chalk retired the methodologies.

The civic officials stated that the stringent conditions laid down successful the declaration clauses, including that the contractors volition not beryllium capable to name section firms, person besides led to the hold successful the commencement of work.

The Indian Express analysed records and RTI information to item the 5 companies that were selected for the task and the enactment completed by them:

Eagle Infra India: Tender for 70.49 km successful eastbound suburbs; completed 4.54 km (6.44%) by June 2024. Based successful Ulhas Nagar, it has been awarded aggregate enactment orders successful the past. The steadfast did not respond to requests for comment.

MEIL: Tender for 106 km successful occidental suburbs; completed 16.88 km (15.92%) by June 2024. The institution has handled projects, including Zojila Tunnel and the Samruddhi Expressway.
About the dilatory gait of work, a spokesperson said, “Below the roads, determination are networks of inferior cables. The contractors person to get support from Traffic Police and the inferior proviso agencies, and the process of acquiring permissions could statesman lone during October past year… owed to a dense monsoon period, we lone get to enactment for 8 months…”

DRAIPL: Tender for 65 km successful occidental suburbs; completed 2.515 km (3.86%) by June 2024. A spokesperson said, “All the spots wherever we person taken roadworthy works are densely populated. The process of acquiring support takes a batch of clip it began lone by October, past year. All the roads that are assigned to america are precise narrow.”

NCC: Tender for 82.19 km successful occidental suburbs; completed 5.42 km (6.06%) by June 2024. It is progressive successful aggregate projects including operation of Samruddhi Expressway.

A spokesperson said the process of acquiring permissions for enactment successful the occidental suburbs started lone from October 2023. “The large hurdle we look is the roadworthy networks successful Mumbai are precise narrow… In general, utilities should beryllium laid astatine slightest 4 feet beneath the road’s surface… (in Mumbai, they) are placed instantly beneath the crust, which makes them vulnerable. There person been instances erstwhile these utilities were damaged… we had to divert our manpower for repairing these issues,” said the spokesperson.

RSIIL: Tender for 65.51 km successful land city; services terminated successful October 2023 earlier enactment started. It has been progressive successful different projects specified arsenic toll postulation connected Samruddhi Expressway and enactment connected NH 48. Asked astir the BMC’s allegations astir the mediocre prime of work, the spokesperson denied them.

“The substance is successful tribunal and everybody volition cognize the information soon. When the termination missive was issued to RSIIL, the wide advancement of concretisation of roads successful Mumbai was beneath 1%. However, it was lone RSIIL who was terminated,” the spokesperson said.

BMC Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani said, “Ahead of revocation BMC had approached RSIL, but they were unresponsive”. However, erstwhile asked astir it, the RSIIL spokesperson said, “We responded to BMC and we had afloat correspondence with them”.