Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation puts out tenders for pre-monsoon road work

The civic authority has floated tenders for pre-monsoon road maintenance work which is expected to reduce by half the expenses on pothole repairs incurred in the past few years.

The move is a welcome change from past practice when the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had planned similar work last year, but it wasn't done.

"From our experience, we have worked out a plan to repair potholed roads in a proper way. We expect that this will help to reduce the expenses on potholes," said SVR Srinivas, additional municipal commissioner.

The expenses for pothole repairs alone have shot up to over Rs50 crore over the past five years. In 2013-14, the BMC spent Rs57 crore for such repair work, but it has budgeted just Rs28 crore for repair of potholes in 2014-15.

The city has been marked out into seven zones for the pre-monsoon road maintenance work. The BMC will identify the roads which are in poor shape and require repairs.

A sum of Rs24 crore has been budgeted for the pre-monsoon road maintenance plan.

In a related area, the civic body is looking closely at about 900 recently laid roads that are under the defect liability period. Defects on these roads will have to be corrected by the contractors who made these roads.

"We have chalked out these plans to reduce the expenses on pothole work from last year. Let's see how it works out during the monsoon," Srinivas said.

While the civic body aims to cut expenses, questions remain about the quality of the work, given that the BMC has laid down that the contractors would have to work together with five technology providers, who were involved in the repairs during the previous monsoon.

"The problem was not with the technology, but with the way the contractors executed the work. Action will be taken against any company found faltering," said a source in the roads department.

Citizens are looking forward to the new proposal. "We appreciate the BMC's plan to curb the exorbitant expenses for repairing potholes as repairs are a temporary measure for a bigger problem. It is to be seen whether the corporation completes the target it has set for itself," said Rohan Sawant, a resident of Andheri.

Officials said that if all goes well the work could commence in a month.


Fixing the problem

The contractors will have to work together with the following cold mix technology providers: Hindustan Colas Limited (road bond - technology name), Shaunak Infrastructure (Opel Patch Master), Wonder Technologies (Wonder Patch/Wonder Binder), Summer Infrastructure (Carbon Core), and the JV of Atasha Ashirwad Builders and STG Infrastructure Pvt Ltd.

The pothole tracking system recorded a total of 38,587 potholes in 2013-14.


Reducing the cost

Year
Actual expenses

2008-09
Rs 32.09 crore

2009-10
Rs 49.33 crore

2010-11
Rs 59.35 crore

2011-12
Rs 65.13 crore

2012-13
Rs 56 crore

2013-14
Rs 57 crore

2014-15
Rs 28 crore (estimated)

Source: BMC