Mumbai: Work to concretise 40 per cent of city’s roads yet to start

Work on to convert an asphalt road into cement concrete in Borivli. File pic

Around 40 per cent of the roads which were approved for cement concretisation in January this year and the previous year are yet to see any changes, as per data from the BMC. Of the 551 roads covering 236 km which were approved, 114 roads have been concretised and the work on 212 others are ongoing. The civic body has also started the process of converting another 400 km of asphalt roads into cement concrete and the work is likely to start next month.

Of the 551 roads, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation approved work orders of 505 in January while the remaining were spillover from last year. Though the work started in March, a majority of the roads were untouched till June due to some technical issue regarding laying underground ducts. The BMC finally stepped up the work in October and completed works on 114 roads in the past two months. As per civic officials, work is yet to start on 199 roads. Of the 352 roads where work has started including the 114 which have been completed, a majority of 140 are in western suburbs, followed by 112 in eastern suburbs. The pace of work in the island city is slow with work starting at only 100 of the 200 roads.

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"Most of the big roads have already been converted into cement concrete in the past few years. These are minor internal roads, asphalt stretches on the side of cement concrete roads and a few footpaths and junctions. The work of other roads will be taken shortly," said a BMC official.

Meanwhile, the process of allotting contracts worth Rs 6,080 crore for converting 400 km into cement concrete is in process. "The work will be taken after allotting contracts. We need permission from the traffic department to start the work and the process for the same will start simultaneously," added the official.

Of the total 2,050 km roads in the city, 990 km of roads are already concretised. The work of 236 km of roads has started and the process of 400 km of roads is ongoing. The remaining 423 km will be taken up next year.