2 yrs after issuing work orders, BMC completes 63% of road concretisation work in first phase

Indian Express

5 hours ago

Two years after the road concretisation work began in Mumbai, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been able to complete work of 203.36 km or 63 per cent of the total 320 km of roads that were taken up for concretisation in the first phase.
The work order for the project was issued in January 2023 and till June 10, 2024, the BMC was able to achieve 9 per cent completion and in the last one year the civic officials have been able to achieve 54 per cent of progress rate — shows the BMC's data.
The data shows that in the first phase, 700 roads having a total length of 320 km were taken for concretisation.
Out of this, 343 roads which equalled 101.67 km were completed in entirety and 239 roads which equalled 101.68 km were completed partially.
Owing to the ongoing monsoon season, civil works like concreting of roads could not be taken up and as a result the balance work after monsoon withdrawal begins post first week of October.
The BMC had issued concretisation work in two phases at a total cost of Rs 17,700 crore.
In the second phase, 1,421 roads having a total length of 378.36 km were taken for concretisation of which 139.38 km or 36.83 per cent have been completed so far.
The BMC's data furthermore shows that out of the total roads that were taken up in the second phase, around 428 roads or 84.33 km were completed entirely while 375 roads having a total length of 55.06 km were completed partially in the second phase.
During his budget speech in February, Municipal Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani had said that by March, 2026, BMC intends to finish 75 per cent of the total concretisation works taken in the first phase and 50 per cent of the work taken in the second phase.
'This time, the monsoon onset happened very early and keeping in mind our forecasts we had preponed the deadline for completing the concreting works to May 20 instead of continuing the work till the first week of June. Our objective was to make sure that the maximum number of roads that were taken up for concreting works stay in a motorable condition when monsoon breaks out,' an official told The Indian Express.
The officials said that a key challenge on why it took two years to cross the halfway mark for the project is Mumbai's weather as during the rains, the soil also becomes loose.
'All the major utilities like electrical cables, telephone and fibre lines run beneath the road, therefore digging the roads during rains will expose them to water which may cause serious accidents. As a result, these factors pertaining to the monsoon season on the other hand have automatically pushed the start of work by five more months,' the official said.