Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on Monday demanded that the civic body blacklist road contractors who were fined for a shoddy job earlier. Thackeray said his party would not allow the civic administration to award new road tenders to the same erring contractors, who have failed in their pothole filling work this monsoon.

“How many years will this continue? The civic administration is wasting taxpayers’ money on contractors, first to build roads and then to repair them. The cartel of contractors works hand-in-glove with civic officers and some corporators. This should not continue now,” he said. He said the contractors should be blacklisted for the incomplete and shoddy work immediately.

The figures provided by Probity Soft, the company that introduced the online pothole tracking system in Mumbai, show that in the entire monsoon, 2,104 potholes were reassigned to the contractor because of shoddy work and 1,217 potholes were reopened after the material used to fill them was removed.

Of the total fine of Rs1.86 crore, the fine on contractors who come under the Defect Liability Period (DLP) is Rs73.02 lakh. DLP roads are new roads that are to be maintained by the contractor after he builds them. Asphalt roads have a DLP of three years, while cement-concrete roads have a DLP of five years.