After a hiatus of over a year and a half, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has finally floated tenders for strengthening and improving Marine Drive.
On October 22, dna had reported that the civic body would issue tenders for resurfacing the arterial road in November after dragging its feet for a long time.
The corporation will improve the 4.3-km stretch for Rs57.06 crore. It will also carry out beautification of the median of the iconic road, passing through three wards — A (Nariman Point, Fort), C (Chandanwadi) and D (Girgaum Chowpatty). The work of beautifying the median will include planting trees.
“The tenders will be accepted till December 2. The process to get approval for the actual work should be completed in a month, once the standing committee sanctions it. Once that’s done, the work is expected to begin in January,” a senior civic official said.
According to the tender conditions, the contractor, who will be awarded the job, will have to complete the work in 10 months, excluding monsoon.
As per plan, 70% of the road (between Girgaum Chowpatty and Madame Cama Road) is to be made of mechanised mastic, while the remaining — up to the NCPA — will be of cement concrete.
Mechanised mastic contains high bitumen content and has a longer life than ordinary asphalt. An asphalt road has a life of about five years.
The plan is to fill the cracks first and cover with a geo-synthetic layer later. This layer will avert further development of cracks. The official, however, reiterated that given the importance of the road, the work will be carried out in a phased manner in co-ordination with the traffic police.
Even though the corporation had proposed resurfacing the road, because of its deteriorating quality, in its budget for 2012-13, the work could not take off because the roads department changed its mind on how to strengthen the road.
In the budget, it had planned to resurface the road with mechanised mastic and cement in a 70:30 ratio. Later, it considered the option of replacing the old drainage network and constructing the road using cement concrete. However, after ‘realising’ that that option will take a few years, the civic body switched back to the old plan.
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