The year 2022 was when BMC, for the first time, floated over Rs 8,000 crore worth of tenders for resurfacing 600 kms of roads in Mumbai. Of these mega works, orders worth Rs 2,200 crore for cement concreting 236 kms were issued earlier this year. Tenders to cement-concrete another 400 km of works worth Rs 6,000 crore are in process. Tenders worth Rs 6,000 crore for resurfacing roads were also issued in August this year, cancelled due to a poor response, and then floated again in November.
That reads like an impressive line-up for infrastructure work; the only problem is despite these grand announcements by the local authorities and the political class, only around 20% of the works assigned have actually begun.
Citing an instance of projects stuck in the pipeline, former opposition leader in the BMC, Ravi Raja, who was a Congress corporator from Sion, said in March this year he inaugurated three vital road repair works, namely concreting of Hemant Manjrekar Road and Jaishankar Yagnik Road in Sion east and asphalting of an extension of Jaishankar Yagnik Marg, but none of them have taken off.
“None of the works has begun on the ground. It appears that the announcements for repairs and resurfacing worth several crores were just made with the upcoming elections in mind. There is no planning on how these repair works would be undertaken,” he said. The BMC elections are likely to be held early next year and parties are vying for mileage.
In Bandra, former corporator Asif Zakaria said repair of some roads are underway, but work on many has not begun as officials have claimed that they have not been able to get permission from traffic authorities. “There is no point in blaming BMC as it is also not practical to shut all roads at one time if repairs have been planned. BMC should have thought about it before proposing so many repair works,” said Zakaria.
The reasons for the delay range from lack of coordination to the ambitious scope of the project itself. Samajwadi Party leader and MLA Rais Shaikh, in whose former corporator ward in Mumbai Central the concreting of Maulana Azad road is underway, said BMC’s plans to take up concreting of such large lengths is extremely impressive, but impractical.
“The BMC does not even have the manpower to supervise such a large quantum of repair works. If one looks at past years, the civic body has never taken up such a large quantum of concreting in a single year. Concreting of roads is a very long drawn process and needs to be given enough time. This overambition is only going to kill the quality of road works,” said Shaikh. In past years it has been seen that the BMC spends over Rs 2,000 crore on average for repairs of roads; this year the figure has bloated significantly.
Citizens say one of the major hassles in road repair works in Mumbai is also the dearth of coordination required between various utility agencies. “There are multiple utility lines running below the ground. For cement concreting of roads, authorities need to dig deep for which permission from utility agencies is required. A lot of time is lost in ensuring coordination. In Pali Hill, despite citizens’ vigil on repairs, there has been around a 10-day delay in works,” said Madhu Poplai of the Pali Hill residents association.
Former Dahisar corporator Abhishek Ghosalkar said while all the grand road repair announcements are being made, one needs to keep in mind that it will take at least 2-3 years for these to be completed.
“The authorities cannot rush with concreting of roads and therefore unlike previous years when road repair works planned would be completed in one year, this will go on for at least 2-3 years. Currently one contractor has been assigned multiple road repair works and he is unable to start all of it together. Therefore, in every ward one road is being repaired,” he said.
Civic officials have said the biggest problem contractors face is in getting traffic police permission. “All works cannot start in one go as there are multiple repair works planned. As and when traffic police issue permission, we are beginning work. We understand the concerns of citizens and hence are supervising the roads to ensure that it is completed on time,” said a senior BMC official.
