BMC could allocate Rs 3,000 cr for roads, but no new project on cards

Sanda is hardly alone.

Yeshwant Pawar takes the same amount of time to commute from Mantralaya to Kalyan, a 61-km journey, switching from a bus to a train and then another bus to reach home.

Sanda, Pawar and millions of other daily commuters will have reason to watch very closely as Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte reads out his budget estimates for the coming financial year 2015-16.

This year, the commissioner is expected to raise the allocation for road construction and maintenance from Rs 2,500 crore last year to Rs 3,000 crore. But officials from the BMC’s roads and traffic department are clear that the priority this coming year is on reforming and strengthening the existing road network — no major new road construction projects will be taken up.

In any case, of the Rs 2,500 crore allotted in 2014-15 for road works, the civic body spent only Rs 825 crore — 33 per cent of the budgetary allocation. This was part of the estimated Rs 7,774-crore project on improvement of 1,239 kms of city roads by the year 2017.

“With such a large budget, we expect our lives as commuters to improve at least a little each year. But potholes remain, random digging up of roads make them narrower year after year. For the last one year, the civic body has undertaken work at the Kala Nagar signal worsening traffic in that area,” says Ameya Khandekar, a social media strategist who spends four hours in his car everyday, commuting from home in Borivali to Lower Parel. “At least once a week, generally fuelled by frustration, I take the train to work.”

Of the 2,000-km road network in the financial capital, about 1,950 km is under the BMC’s care. The civic body’s most ambitious project, the Rs 8,000-crore coastal road project, which will connect the western suburbs to the city, is yet to take off. The Goregaon Mulund Link Road, the last of the east-west connectors in the suburbs, has finally kicked off after a two-year delay. While the focus in the coming financial year will be on completing projects already underway, Kunte is also expected to make some announcements regarding reforms in monitoring the quality of work.

“Instead of announcing major projects and aiming high every year, the civic body should assess the situation in every locality. In crowded business hubs such as Lower Parel, even the footpaths lie encroached for years together. Why can’t the civic body start with solving these simple issues first?” asks Mihir Palan, a media professional who commutes from Mulund to Currey Road daily basis.

Mumbaiites are hoping there will be some announcements regarding cutting down delays. For example, a project proposed in 2009, the 5.25-km Jogeshwari Bridge, is expected to be commissioned in May 2015. In the year of its initiation, the project was allocated Rs 341 crore. Following cost escalation, it now stands to cost Rs 450 crore. The bridge is expected to ease traffic congestion in the Goregaon-Jogeshwari region of the Western Express Highway and SV Road.

Senior civic officials said this budget speech would focus on ironing out such processes instead of proposing major new works. An official from the roads and traffic department said, “The major focus will be to strengthen the current network of roads and also concentrate on the two major projects, GMLR and the coastal road.”

Road to nowhere

From Rs 2,500 crore to Rs 3,000 crore, a 20 per cent increase is expected in the budgetary allocation to improve roads in the financial year 2015-16. In the FY 2013-14, the roads and traffic department of the civic body was allocated Rs 1,540 crore, which was raised by Rs 1000 crore the same year even as the roads and traffic department of the BMC has faced flak for under-utilisation of the budgeted sum.

While only one-fourth of the budget, ie Rs 350 crore, was utlised in 2013-14, only 33 per cent or Rs 825 crore of the amount allotted was spent this current fiscal.

The civic body has recently also invited tenders for road re-surfacing in the western and eastern suburbs at a cost of Rs 1,800 crore, an exercise that the civic body should have undertaken immediately after monsoons last year.