To prevent water logging, soak pits mandatory in road concretisation tenders

Contractors will have to mandatorily construct soak pits every 200m to 300m on either side of the road.

Mumbai: Taking into consideration that road concretisation could lead to waterlogging, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has proposed unique measures in-built in the tenders. Contractors will have to mandatorily construct soak pits every 200 meters to 300 meters on either side of the road.

Thane, India - November 11, 2022: Concretisation of road and repairing work in progress in Thane. To ensure pothole-free roads, the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has undertaken repair works worth ₹214 crore. It will cover around 53 kilometres and 127 roads, at Hajuri, Wagle Estate, in Thane, Mumbai, India, on Friday, November 11, 2022. (Praful Gangurde/HT Photo) (HT PHOTO)

An official of the BMC’s roads department said, “We have made provision for soak pits to let water seep into the road surface and we are also using porous concrete at some places to soak water. We have made the concept of soak pits mandatory in the tender.”

Explaining the process of constructing soak pits, he said, “A hole with a depth of around three to four meters will be drilled, pipes will be inserted followed by perforated cables and finally, put a mesh so that rainwater can easily percolate into the ground. The basic idea is to increase the ground water table for the borewells, which has been a common complaint.”

The official added, “While this will not completely resolve the issue of water logging but will prevent it to a great extent as water percolates faster. This is a unique feature, which is a part of the road tender.”

Precast drains and ducts will be another feature in the tender. “Precast ducts and drains will be laid wherein the former will prevent trenching on roads by external utilities and also facilitate laying them without repeated excavation. The utility ducts will ensure reduction in construction time.

“Also, the work will be monitored through high resolution cameras on the road that will be linked to the internet. The bar code on barricading and all information of the road works will be available. These are some additional features we are implementing in the tenders,” he said.

The BMC has divided the ₹6,000 crore work into five packets. Three for the Western suburbs — 516 roads, one for the island city — 212 roads and the remaining one for the eastern suburbs — 181 roads.

As per the instructions of CM Eknath Shinde, the work for concretising of 397km-long roads was taken up recently after PM Narendra Modi did the bhoomipujan. About 256kms of road concretisation will be done in the western suburbs alone.

“Western suburbs has more road length and we are carrying around 50% load. The contractors have experience in building national highways. They are construction firms involved in large project works with good machinery and have been delivering quality products. The estimated life of these cement concrete roads is 30 years,” said the civic official.

Prominent roads proposed for improvement in 2023-2024 are Lady Laxmibai Jagmohan Marg, BG Kher Marg,Narayan Dabholkar Marg, Bhaskar Bopi Road, Link Road in western suburbs, MN Road, DP Road no.9, BR Road and NB Patil Marg in the eastern suburbs.