Submit white paper on road works done in Mumbai in 25 years, BJP demands

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the civic standing committee has demanded a white paper detailing the work done on roads and the maintenance of roads in the past 25 years, at the hands of contractors.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the civic standing committee has demanded a white paper detailing the work done on roads and the maintenance of roads in the past 25 years, at the hands of contractors. The party also demanded that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) administration should scrap road work tenders where contractors have bid up to 33% lower than BMC’s estimated cost for the road work.

BJP has demanded an audit of all road works at the hands of an external auditor under the BMC. (HT PHOTO)

Prabhakar Shinde, BJP leader said in a statement on Friday, “As a part of the tendering process, this year, 31 tenders were floated totalling to ₹1,200 crore. It has been observed that in this process, the contractors have quoted about 26-33% lower than the estimated costs in the tenders. Similarly for the tenders to fill in the trenches, this difference is 27-36.6% lower than the estimated costs. As a policy, if contractors quote an amount that goes below 12% lower than the estimated cost, they are required to deposit an additional security deposit amount to the civic body. If we look at the overall calculation, contractors have quoted amounts that are 40-45% lower than the estimated costs.

Alongside the whitepaper, BJP has also demanded an audit of all road works at the hands of an external auditor under the BMC. Shinde said, “Contractors which quote way lower than the estimated costs can not assure quality work as far as repairs, maintenance and fresh roadworks is concerned. We demand that such tenders should be cancelled and the process of re-tendering strictly as per the prescribed guidelines should be initiated.”