Iqbal Singh Chahal refutes corruption allegations, says BMC working in transparent manner

Last month, Aaditya had alleged that owing to stoppage of gravel supply, construction work for several infrastructure projects including the road concretisation work in Mumbai has been stopped.

He also said that one particular supplier is carrying out his monopoly in the market to an extent that he is able to control the price of the product in market.

However, Chahal maintained that these allegations are baseless and the civic body has also imposed penalties on contractors who have violated provisions that were mentioned in the tender document for the concretisation project of BMC.

“The contractors appointed for the concretisation work didn’t stop their work, nether there was any issue regarding the increase in the rates of gravels that were raised by any of the contractors. Therefore, the allegations regarding gravel supply stand meaningless,” Chahal said.

During the Budget session of the Assembly, BJP legislator Mihir Kotecha as well as Aaditya had alleged financial malpractices in BMC’s street furniture project, tenders for the same was floated by the Central Purchase Department (CPD). Chahal said the contractors submitted their bids at a cost 4.96% above the estimated rates.

However, the civic administration negotiated and fixed the rate at 0.1% below the estimated rates based on which bids were called.

“Regarding street furniture, the entire process has been carried out impartially and transparently by BMC administration and all the rules and conditions related to the tender and work have been properly followed. Therefore, BMC is clarifying that there has been no irregularity or malpractice in the said works,” Chahal said.

Alongside these, the opposition leaders also criticised BMC’s decision of setting up sanitary pad vending and incinerator machines.

Allegations were made by UBT Sena’s legislator, Anil Parab, who said that while the BMC intends to set up vending machines in more than 5,000 public ladies’ toilets, while in real, Mumbai doesn’t have so many public toilets for ladies. Parab also alleged that the BMC is acquiring the vending machines at an inflated cost, which is leading to a Rs 42 crore scam.

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) department carried out a survey through which it was determined that vending and incinerator machines will be installed in 5,000 public toilets out of the 8,173 public toilets that are operational in Mumbai. Accordingly, an e-tender was floated on January 31, 2022 and in response to that, three respondents have submitted their bids and after evaluation, we had submitted work order to the lowest bidder on February 20, 2023,” Chahal said.