When will Mumbai roads be pothole free? Only 9% concretisation work completed in 16 months since order

While five companies were awarded the contract in February 2023 to concretise the roads, data further shows that only one of the five companies has completed more than 10 per cent work by June 10 this year.

Three companies completed only between 4 and 7 per cent of the length of the road project they were awarded.

The contract of the fifth company — Roadway Solutions India Infra Ltd (RSIIL) — was terminated by BMC in October 2023, before the work started.

The concretisation of 128 roads of the total target of 698 in the suburbs have been completed— 109 are in the western suburbs, while 19 are in the eastern suburbs.

After becoming the chief minister in June 2022, Shinde had announced plans to make Mumbai roads pothole-free within two years by concretising the existing asphalt roads.

Following this, the civic body had invited tenders amounting to Rs 6,079 crore to concretise 389 km of roads in the first phase.

A BMC official said that as per the contract conditions the project has to be completed in 36 months, excluding monsoon, which ends at February, 2026.

The Mumbai currently has a road network of 2,050 km of which 1,224 km is already concretised.

The work orders for the mega road concretisation project amounting to Rs 6,079 crore were issued almost happened almost a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi carried out ‘Bhoomi-Poojan’ during a public rally at Mumbai’s BKC ground on January 19, 2023.

Initially, BMC had announced plans to concretise 910 roads in Mumbai, measuring a total length of 389 km.

However, since the contract for starting the work at island city was revoked by the civic body, the authorities have been able to carry out work only in the eastern and western suburbs and the total target of concretising the roads was revised to 324 km.

Sources in BMC said that since the concretisation work could not take-off during monsoon season last year, all the contractors were entrusted only with the responsibility of repairing and maintaining the bad patches on the roads that fall under their body of work.

Since Mumbai records heavy rainfall during the monsoon, all civil and infrastructure related works are stalled between June and October.

Civic officials maintained that even though the work orders were issued to the contractors in February 2023, actual work could only begin after October.

In the affidavit submitted to the Bombay High Court (HC) in February, 2024, the BMC had said that between April and June, 20 per cent of the work would be completed.

“Since the actual work could only start by October last year, it took some time for these companies to acquire NOC from the traffic department. Under this project, we will concretise the already existing asphalt roads in Mumbai, which in turn will not only prevent emergence of potholes and but also will increase their life span,” said Abhijit Bangar, additional municipal commissioner (Projects), BMC.

“We have issued work orders to contractors for the second phase of road concretisation work and by May 31, 2025, nearly 200 km of Mumbai roads will be concretised,” he added.

Stating that most of the contractor firms, who have been awarded the work orders, are new in this area, the official said that they take their time to chalk out the methodologies.

The civic officials stated that the stringent conditions laid down in the contract clauses, including that the contractors will not be able to appoint local firms, have also led to the delay in the start of work.

The Indian Express analysed records and RTI data to detail the five companies that were selected for the project and the work completed by them:

Eagle Infra India: Tender for 70.49 km in eastern suburbs; completed 4.54 km (6.44%) by June 2024. Based in Ulhas Nagar, it has been awarded multiple work orders in the past. The firm did not respond to requests for comment.

MEIL: Tender for 106 km in western suburbs; completed 16.88 km (15.92%) by June 2024. The company has handled projects, including Zojila Tunnel and the Samruddhi Expressway.
About the slow pace of work, a spokesperson said, “Below the roads, there are networks of utility cables. The contractors have to acquire permission from Traffic Police and the utility supply agencies, and the process of acquiring permissions could begin only during October last year… due to a heavy monsoon period, we only get to work for eight months…”

DRAIPL: Tender for 65 km in western suburbs; completed 2.515 km (3.86%) by June 2024. A spokesperson said, “All the spots where we have taken road works are densely populated. The process of acquiring permission takes a lot of time it began only by October, last year. All the roads that are assigned to us are very narrow.”

NCC: Tender for 82.19 km in western suburbs; completed 5.42 km (6.06%) by June 2024. It is involved in multiple projects including construction of Samruddhi Expressway.

A spokesperson said the process of acquiring permissions for work in the western suburbs started only from October 2023. “The major hurdle we face is the road networks in Mumbai are very narrow… In general, utilities should be laid at least four feet below the road’s surface… (in Mumbai, they) are placed immediately below the crust, which makes them vulnerable. There have been instances when these utilities were damaged… we had to divert our manpower for repairing these issues,” said the spokesperson.

RSIIL: Tender for 65.51 km in island city; services terminated in October 2023 before work started. It has been involved in other projects such as toll collection on Samruddhi Expressway and work on NH 48. Asked about the BMC’s allegations about the poor quality of work, the spokesperson denied them.

“The matter is in court and everybody will know the truth soon. When the termination letter was issued to RSIIL, the overall progress of concretisation of roads in Mumbai was below 1%. However, it was only RSIIL who was terminated,” the spokesperson said.

BMC Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani said, “Ahead of revocation BMC had approached RSIL, but they were unresponsive”. However, when asked about it, the RSIIL spokesperson said, “We responded to BMC and we had full correspondence with them”.