Mumbai: Congress accuses BMC of road tender irregularities

I C Colony Road 3 appeared in both the 2022 and 2024 tenders; (right) Rajaram Tawade Road is undergoing resurfacing work and also appeared in the concreting tender

The same roads that were included in the earlier concreting contract 2022 were included in the new tender floated, alleged Congress in a press conference held on Tuesday. Varsha Gaikavad, president of Mumbai Congress said the BMC is fooling citizens by adding the same roads in two contracts and denying information to public representatives. BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal said, if any such issue is there, it will be investigated.

The roads that have appeared in both the 2022 & 2024 tenders include I C Colony Road, I C Colony Road 2, I C Colony Road 3 I C Colony Road 4, I C Colony Road 5, and Holy Cross Road. Mumbai has a road network of 2,050 km of which 989.84 km of roads had already been concreted before 2022. The BMC started concreting 210 km of roads in January 2022 and floated tenders for concreting 397 km more roads in December 2022 at a cost of Rs 6080 crore excluding 18 per cent GST. Now the BMC has floated another tender for the rest of the 400 km roads at an estimated cost of Rs 6250 crore plus 18 percent GST.

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Sheetal Mhatre, an ex-corporator of Congress alleged that the roads from I C colony in Borivali West which were included in the contract given through tenders in 2022 were mentioned in tenders floated in 2024. "I represented and was aware of the locality well. I visited each road mentioned in both tenders. The BMC changed the description slightly but they are the same roads. Why don't they provide sketches so that we can compare them? I have been asking for maps of the roads under RTI for one month, but the BMC is not ready to provide them. They should have put the maps in the public domain as the matter is related to the public," said Mhatre.

She added, "Work of resurfacing of Godavari Mhatre Road, Kalasekar Parab Road, Mangeshrao Sawant Road, Narayan Mhatre Road, Damodar Mhatre Road, Balkrushna Tawade Road, Rajaram Tawade Road, Rajaram Tawade road in Mhatre Wadi at Borivli West is in progress and will be completed by this month. All these roads are included in the new tenders. If they wanted to concrete these roads, why have they wasted public money on these roads?"

Asif Zakaria, ex-corporator from Bandra said, "The BMC hasn't been able to complete even 15 per cent road works from the tenders floated in December 2022, and even then they have floated tenders for the rest of the roads. The tender process won't be completed before monsoon and the traffic police won't permit all these roads at the same time. Then why is there so much hurry? Do they want to empty the coffers of the BMC?"

Gaikwad said, "Why is the BMC hiding information asked by the public representatives through RTI? The BMC is working only to give contracts to selected friends. This must be just a tip of the scam which is going on all over the city by adding the same roads in both tenders. We demand inquiry for the same."

Protest march

The INDI alliances have decided to hold a protest march at the civic body headquarters near CST on March 6 against various alleged irregularities. A meeting of the constituent parties of the ‘INDIA' bloc was held on Monday at the Mumbai Congress office. The meeting was attended by representatives of AAP, Communist Party of India (CPI), Peasants and Workers Party of India (PWP), CP (M), Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) participated. It was decided at the meeting to hold the protest.