Mumbai: Shelar Calls for SIT Inquiry into BMC's Poor Concrete Road Construction
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Mumbai, Dec 13 (NationPress) Amid reports of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) poor concrete road construction, Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar on Friday appealed to Municipal Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani to form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the quality of work conducted. He proposed a thorough audit involving experts from IIT Bombay and VJTI, focusing on 40 percent of the concretized road patches selected randomly. Furthermore, he urged the examination of any lapses in quality control, vigilance processes, and the performance of contractors.
Shelar has also insisted that stringent actions be taken against negligent road contractors, which may include imposing fines, blacklisting, and penalizing any careless agencies and officials.
His request during a meeting with Gagrani follows media reports detailing cracks in newly concretized roads across several areas in Mumbai. The BMC is currently allocating Rs 6000 crore towards the road concretization project around the city, which was recently inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In his letter to Gagrani, Shelar mentioned receiving numerous complaints from citizens about the substandard quality of the road concreting work.
“During my inspection of Badhwar Road in Santa Cruz West area of my constituency, I observed that the recently finished concretized road has developed cracks, layers of concrete are peeling off, and the curing processes for the latest road works are inadequate. Given the numerous issues of poor quality associated with the road concreting efforts that have surfaced in media reports,” he stated.
Shelar’s correspondence and inspection visit were motivated by several complaints from residents in Powai, Bandra West, and Andheri’s Lokhandwala regarding the conditions of newly concretized roads.
Residents attributed these issues to negligence on the part of contractors and civic officials, claiming that the failure to conduct regular monitoring has led to the poor quality of work.
Taking the complaints from citizens seriously, a BMC officer stated that they would hold contractors and quality management agencies accountable for the subpar work.
