BMC to appoint agencies to maintain service roads of Eastern, Western Express Highways

Earlier this week, the BMC floated multiple tenders amounting to Rs 34 crore for filling potholes at multiple locations between Bandra and Dahisar in the western suburbs.

The WEH and EEH were handed over to the BMC by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) in 2023, following which the civic officials carried out repairs of the main carriageway. Currently, the BMC has also
appointed dedicated agencies for regular maintenance of these two highways.

“The service roads don’t fall under the purview of the appointed contractual agencies. Therefore, separate tenders have been called for their maintenance. Large potholes emerge on these roads during monsoon, posing a threat to motorists, and the local ward offices try to fill them to their best capacity. However, to make sure there is a systemic approach, we have decided to appoint dedicated agencies for maintaining the service roads,” an official said.

The agencies will be responsible for reinstating the trenches, smoothening the surface of the roads and reapiring the bad patches of these service roads. These works will be carried out by using mastic and asphalt. The agencies will be working round the clock during the monsoon to make sure the roads are in a good condition.

Besides being an important north-south link in Mumbai, these two highways are also the only roads for entering and exiting the city limits. As a result, heavy vehicles such as trucks and tourist buses frequent these highways throughout the day.

“All these roads are asphalt roads and are yet to be concretised. As a result, there’s a heavy chance that potholes may emerge and road surfaces may get damaged during the rains. Most of these roads are old, therefore they don’t fall under the purview of defect-liability-period. It is necessary for us to appoint a dedicated agency for maintaining these roads during monsoon. Or else, the entire surface will be affected and traffic will be severely affected,” added the official.

Meanwhile, for the ongoing road concretising works, nearly 450km of roads is currently being dug up in Mumbai and BMC commissioner Bhushan Gagrani has said that ongoing work on all dug up roads will be completed by May 31. Officials said the emergence of potholes will be unlikely once the roads are concretised.

Last year, the BMC had floated a Rs 36 crore tender seperately for filling potholes in Mumbai. Besides this, the BMC also allotted Rs 2 crore to each of its 24 ward offices for filling potholes in all the minor roads in their jurisdiction.