Underpass: Thane civic body drops consultants

The Thane Municipal Corporation has decided to go ahead with the construction of the Vitawa Road underpass on the busy Thane-Belapur Road without appointing any consultant.

The Thane Municipal Corporation has decided to go ahead with the construction of the Vitawa Road underpass on the busy Thane-Belapur Road without appointing any consultant. The move follows its bitter experiences with consultants particularly in projects involving railways.

We realised that civic engineers are spending most of their time resolving disputes among contractors,consultants and government agencies. The idea behind the appointment of consultants was to free them for other projects, a senior civic engineer said.

The Thane-Kopri road overbridge has been pending since 2002 and the work of consultants from RITES has not been satisfactory. For Vitawa Road underpass,the TMC plans to appoint a retired civil engineer as supervisor.

The TMC has appointed a construction firm,ITD,for the work and it has managed to convince the railway authorities that the technology would not require blocking of railway traffic. The estimated cost of the project is Rs 6.34 crore and it has to be completed before May 2010. The work envisages breaching the embankment underneath tracks by inserting concrete boxes.

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