Call for action against erring contractors

On Thursday,Uddhav Thackeray had called for dissolution of the Mumbai Metropolitan Road Development Authority (MMRDA) led by Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan. The agency is responsible for the construction of some bridges,flyovers and roads as part of the Metro and monorail projects.

“The condition of roads have gone from bad to worse. Rather than blaming the BMC for the fault we need to take to task the contractors for the bad quality of roads. I have asked the civic administration to enquire about legal possibilities such as filing of FIRs against erring contractors,” said Shewale.

The standing committee chairman has directed the civic body to initiate a survey of the 1200 roads,which are under the defect liability period of contractors. “The BMC should forfeit the two per cent contract deposit money that the contractors pay while securing a contract for road repair. Also,the retention money,which is kept with the BMC till the defect liability period ends,should be forfeited by the BMC,said Shewale.

Of the 1940-km road network,350 km is the worst-affected. A contractor,who takes up repair work of a road,is responsibile for upkeep of the road for three years.

There are over 2,500 potholed spots on city roads at various locations. The BMC has spent Rs 26 crore in the past three months and has made a provision for another Rs 14-crore for filling potholes. Before the onset of monsoon,the civic body had drawn up a list of 3,093 locations,where big and small potholes were identified. It had claimed to have repaired 3,055 such locations by mid-June. Potholes were found at another 1,392 locations in June and around 1,316 such areas were repaired.