BMC engineer assaulted amid road concreting works in Vakola

“If no action is taken in the next 24 hours, we will ensure that all the ongoing concreting works will be stopped from November 1 (Saturday) onwards. What happened is unacceptable and we have asked the authorities to check CCTV to ensure proper investigation,” Bhutekar said.

Meanwhile, the FIR states that the incident took place on Thursday around 1.15 pm, when a group of engineers were carrying out a site inspection at Kalina Village Road. The officials said that during the visit, a local resident expressed concern on excavation works causing leakage in one of the utility lines that have been placed underneath the road surface. However, the civic officials said they had assured that the pipeline system will not be damaged following an inspection. However, the locals demanded that the road shouldn’t be excavated which led to a verbal spat and one of the residents manhandled an assistant engineer present at the spot.

The local person has been identified as Raja Akbar Qureshi (42), while the civic official has been identified as Sachin Bandgar.

“When we started explaining the situation, the locals started abusing us and one of the men started pushing Bandgar, grabbed him by his collar and punched him. Soon we called the local police and Qureshi was detained,” said an official present at the spot.

Meanwhile, civic sources said Bandgar has submitted a written complaint to the police station and said that action should be taken against the assailants since they intervened in a government job.
Meanwhile, a senior civic official said the BMC is coordinating with the union as well as the police department to ensure stringent action is taken and the road works will continue as per the schedule.

“We have met union members and have been assured that the work will continue. At the same time, we are also coordinating with the police to ensure that they take timely action and the culprits are penalised. Since the person has been detained further action is underway,” said the official.
According to civic officials, the BMC started concreting as many as 1,350 roads having a total length of 365.44 km.

The officials said the overall bracket of 365 km has been divided into two categories–in the first category it will be taking up 574 roads having a total length of 156.74 km. These roads are partially complete and will be taken up for completion on priority. In total, the BMC has earmarked a budget of Rs 17,733 crore to concretise 700 km of roads in Mumbai.

The road concreting project was announced in 2022 by Eknath Shinde (then chief minister) shortly after forming the government in Maharashtra. Shinde had announced that the entire project would be completed by early 2025.