Nearly 780km from the heart of Mumbai, in a little-known Raniwara village in Rajasthan’s Jarole district, road contractors meet once a year and discuss the BMC’s tender for repairing potholes and constructing roads.
Nearly 780km from the heart of Mumbai, in a little-known Raniwara village in Rajasthan’s Jarole district, road contractors meet once a year and discuss the BMC’s tender for repairing potholes and constructing roads.
So strong is the cartel of Raniwara contractors that others have failed to secure BMC contracts for the past several years. Sources said almost 90% of the city road contractors hail from Raniwara.
“It is business-cum-religious trip to our native place. We get a chance to meet our relatives, visit the Sundha Mata temple and also finalise deals for road repairs in Mumbai,” said a BMC contractor from Rajasthan requesting anonymity.
“If we meet in Mumbai, others get a whiff of the meeting and it becomes the talk of town. We don’t like controversies and so, Raniwara is the ideal meeting place for us.”
At the meeting, we decide who participates for a particular area’s road and pothole-filling tender.
“Participating in the BMC tender process is a formality for us. Civic officials and politicians are part of the syndicate. Unless we pay bribes to them, we cannot work in the corporation,” a contractor told DNA.
He added: “Our strategy is to quote a price lower than the BMC’s minimum price. BMC allots the contract to the firm quoting the lowest amount and therefore, Mumbai gets bad roads. Almost 30% of the amount goes as bribe, 40% is spent on road work and the remaining 30% is profit.”
By quoting such a low figure, Raniwara contractors keep major firms at bay. A contractor said nobody would quote a lower than minimum price.
“Even if someone does, politicians and bureaucrats will demand a bigger sum as bribe as he does not belong to the syndicate. In a couple of years, he is bound to get discouraged to take part in the tendering process,” he said.
Contractors said one should not expect good roads in such a scenario. “We are ready to construct good roads, but for that, bureaucrats and politicians should stop demanding money,” said another contractor.
Nitin Shah from consultancy firm RPS Ltd admitted that a majority of road contractors are from Raniwara, but denied that they run a cartel to win BMC contracts.
“If we were indeed running a cartel, why would we quote a figure lower than the minimum amount decided by the BMC?” argued Shah. “We have done the Bandra-Worli sea link road as well as the Metro junction where there are hardly any potholes.”
Prominent road contractors:
RPS Ltd - Nitin Shah (Rajasthan)
Relcon - Tejas, Rakesh, Jayesh and Deepak Shah (Rajasthan)
Mahaveer & Co - Pankaj and Amit Kikavat (Rajasthan)
RP Construction - Raju Shah (Rajasthan)
RK Madan - Narendra Madan (Rajasthan)
Bitcon - SN Shah (Rajasthan)
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