Urgent need to overhaul way roads are built: CM

Responding to public outrage over the state of Mumbai’s roads this monsoon, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Friday said the government is relooking at the way roads are being built in the city and is trying to come up with a lasting solution.

Responding to public outrage over the state of Mumbai’s roads this monsoon, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Friday said the government is relooking at the way roads are being built in the city and is trying to come up with a lasting solution.

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There’s no denying that the roads are in a bad shape and there’s an urgent need to overhaul the way the civic body is building roads, Chavan told HT.

“I think we need to relook at the technical specifications given for building our roads. Are we pitching our standards too low that allows for poor quality of roads? And what are our quality control [measures] after road contracts are given?” said Chavan.

The CM said the government is consulting experts to determine whether the technology used to construct roads in Mumbai needs to be upgraded.

He has convened a meeting on Saturday with civic officials and technical experts to figure out the basic problem with Mumbai’s roads. “It’s a technical meeting. I am not looking at issues such as road contracts that have been bidded for recently. I want to understand how we can better our technical specifications, our quality control and supervision to rule out shoddy work,” Chavan said. “The commercial aspects of the issue such as tendering and contracts can be addressed later.”