Mumbai: BMC’s massive road repair plan to throw city traffic out of gear

Concreting work near Mantralaya in February 2023. File Pic/Atul Kamble

Soon, 40 per cent of Mumbai roads will be under repairs, adding to the existing chaos created by the dug-up roads. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to invite a tender worth Rs 7,000 crore to concrete 400 km of asphalt road. The BMC is preparing the draft of the tender, which will be published soon.

There are around 2,050 km of roads in Mumbai. In 2022, BMC decided to convert all asphalt roads into cement concrete ones. Additional Municipal Commissioner P Velarasu also confirmed the update. "BMC will invite tenders for the remaining 400 km of roads for concreting very soon," he said. "In this tender, BMC will include minor roads of three and six metres for concreting," an official stated. BMC has converted 1,148 km of roads into concrete ones. By 2022, the concreting of the 990 km road was completed. During 2022-23, BMC completed the concreting of 158 km of roads. Currently, the concreting of 400 km of roads is underway.

In 2023, BMC allotted a tender worth Rs 6,250 crore for converting 400 km of the road. Recently, BMC had to cancel the contract for south Mumbai worth R1,600 crore, since the contractor did not succeed in starting work till December 2024. Now, BMC has decided to invite fresh tenders for south Mumbai. Work in suburbs has not reached 10 per cent of the total work.

According to the tender, the concreting of roads will take at least 24 months, excluding the monsoon. The work on new roads is supposed to start in October 2024. Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray wrote a letter to civic chief I S Chahal and claimed this would be another loot of taxpayer money. In his letter, Thackeray raised questions about the fine of Rs 200 crore. He also mentioned that the BMC should declare when they will collect the fine. Thackeray also demanded that BMC should not allow the same contractors who have not finished 90 per cent of the current work and contractors who haven't paid dues or fines. P Velrasu said the penalties levied on contractors will be recovered from the running bill.