The bridges department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been instructed to review the Goregaon Mulund link road (GMLR) being constructed by SP Singla Constructions Private Ltd, according to civic officials. The decision comes in the wake of the collapse of Sultanganj-Aguwani Ghat Bridge which was under construction in Bihar’s Bhagalpur district. The bridge is being constructed by the same company. Former Leader of Opposition (LoP) in BMC and Congress corporator Ravi Raja has also written to the civic body urging the administration to blacklist the contractor citing safety measures. The BMC has undertaken the GMLR project at an estimated Rs 10,000 crore to ease connectivity in suburban Mumbai. The project, conceived in 2019, will be a high-speed corridor that will connect Goregaon in western suburbs to Mulund in eastern suburbs, through a series of elevated roads, bridges and underground tunnels. At present, work in the first and second phase is underway, and BMC in this year’s budget statement had said the first two phases will be completed by December 2023. On December 20, 2021, BMC’s standing committee had cleared a Rs 666-crore proposal for the appointed Singla Constructions to construct a six-tier flyover in Goregaon at Ratnagiri Hotel Junction, a circular elevated rotary way in Mulund and another six-tier flyover at Hedgewar Chowk. Following this, a work order was issued to the contractor for carrying out the construction. The Indian Express has a copy of the standing committee’s agenda that was passed in December 2021. These three flyovers are being included in the third phase of the GMLR project, and according to BMC’s data, overall seven per cent work has been completed in all three bridges. Singla Construction’s official website also has these three projects listed under the “ongoing projects” section. BMC’s data also says that the flyover at Ratnagiri Hotel Junction will be completed by April 2024, while the elevated rotary and Hedgewar Junction flyover is estimated to be completed by January 2025. Meanwhile, on Monday, P Velrasu, Additional Municipal Commissioner (projects) said the ongoing work is being monitored by BMC, along with a third-party auditor. “The bridges department, along with a third-party agency, PMC Technogem, which we have hired for technical monitoring, is overlooking the day-to-day progress of the GMLR project. I have instructed the chief engineer of the bridges department to review the work that has been done so far by the end of this week,” Velrasu told The Indian Express on Monday. Issuing a letter to the municipal commissioner on Monday, Ravi Raja said, “Around four to five pillars of the under-construction Bhagalpur bridge were damaged by this contractor. The GMLR is an important project for Mumbai and it has come to my knowledge that the said work is of poor quality. “Therefore, to avoid repetition of the Bhagalpur incident in Mumbai, and to ensure public safety and BMC’s reputation, the contract given to the current contractor should be revoked, and fresh work orders should be given to a new contractor to complete the rest of the project,” he said. A 200-metre stretch of the four-lane Bhagalpur bridge still under construction across the Ganga river at a cost of Rs 1,717 crore collapsed on Sunday, roughly 14 months after parts of the same bridge had collapsed. Videos of Sunday’s mishap went viral on social media. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar on Monday ordered a probe into the matter and has asked the ‘Pul Nirman Nigam’ department of the Bihar government to submit a report on this.
