Mumbai’s Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has issued a notice of termination of contract to one of the five contractors who were given the Rs 6,000 crore project that aimed to concretise 397 km of roads in Mumbai, The Indian Express.
A senior civic official said that the BMC sent a letter to ‘M/s Roadway Solutions Infra Limited’ (RSIL) and has given them 15 days to file a response. The officials said the decision to re-appoint a new contractor will be taken only after the termination is sanctioned.
The RSIL was given the responsibility for concretisation of roads covering eight municipal wards. However, in May a Rs 10-crore penalty was imposed on the contractor over a delay in starting the work. While the work orders for the project were issued in January, the works did not see a start by the beginning of the monsoon season. As per civic officials, the work did not start even after monsoon withdrawal had taken place.
What triggered the termination?
The BMC’s decision to terminate the contract came after former BJP corporator Makarand Narwekar raised a complaint. “For the past six months, the roads have been barricaded but the real works are yet to start. Meanwhile, this issue has been causing sheer inconvenience to citizens who are already suffering due to bad roads,” he said.
He added that the BMC should penalise and blacklist the contractor. He also said that BMC should inform agencies like PWD and MMRDA not to appoint them for any future project. A network of 2,050 km of roads fall under BMC’s jurisdiction in Mumbai, out of which 990 kilometres are made of Cement and Concrete (CC), and of the remaining 1,060 kilometres, the concretisation of 270 km of roads was taken up last year.
