While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is set to lose its major revenue source after octroi is replaced with the goods and services tax next year on, its regular road repair works might suffer a shortage of funds as they were directly dependent on octroi. And that's probably why BMC has not announced any major road project this year, but for the existing master plan to improve city roads.
While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is set to lose its major revenue source after octroi is replaced with the goods and services tax next year on, its regular road repair works might suffer a shortage of funds as they were directly dependent on octroi. And that's probably why BMC has not announced any major road project this year, but for the existing master plan to improve city roads.
The roads and traffic department has been allocated Rs3,875 crore this year, an increase of nearly Rs1,000 crore of the amount allocated last year.
The master plan for roads was allocated Rs7,774 crore that was supposed to be spent over a period of three years for improvement of 1,239km of roads in Mumbai. Currently, work on 574 roads is on, while 314 have been completed. While a fund of Rs1,120.51 crore has been allocated for constructing cement concrete roads, Rs1,854 crore has been kept aside for construction of major asphalt/mastic roads.
Nesbit Road and Megharaj Sethi Road in the city, Siddharth Nagar Road No.2, Goregaon (West), Malad Marve Marg, Malad (West), Aakruli Road, Kandivli (East), Dr Ambedkar Marg in the western suburbs, and Mother Dairy Road, Kurla, RC Marg and VN Purav Marg in the eastern suburbs are some of the major roads which will be taken up for work.
A senior civic official from the roads department said most of the road work will be carried out in the western suburbs. "There has been a considerable shift in population in the western suburbs in the last couple of years, so BMC is trying to match up with the infrastructure there," the official said.
New policies
The parking policy, which was recently implemented in A ward as a pilot project, was stayed by the state government. However, BMC is hopeful of implementing it across the city.
The trenching policy is another among the new ones. As per the policy, for digging up roads or footpaths, which have been made in the last one year, the utility contractor will be charged four times the base restoration rate. For two-year-old roads and footpaths, the contractor will be charged three times the road restoration charges. Digging on roads and footpaths made three years ago will cost the contractors double the base restoration charges, and for roads older than three years, the contractor will have to pay the base restoration charges to BMC.
Pedestrian first
BMC will also make efforts to increase the width of footpaths. For the safety of pedestrians, there will be restriction on parking of vehicles on footpaths, and safety chains and iron rods will also be installed. All this will be part of the pedestrian first policy.
BMC has proposed conversion of all street lights to LED ones, which the civic authorities are hoping will generate huge savings in the electricity bill. It is planning to use a part of it to incur expenditure on LED conversion. BJP MLA Ashish Shelar had announced the plan recently, but it had met with stiff opposition from Sena leaders, who feared the state is taking away BMC's power.
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