Mumbai: Construction of Hancock bridge work to take off soon, says BMC

Mumbai: After much delay, finally the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to start the Hancock bridge construction work. A proposal regarding the appointment of contractor and reappointment of consultant was approved by the Standing Committee members of BMC on Wednesday. The total cost of the bridge construction will be Rs 37 crore.

The work on reconstruction of Hancock bridge had been delayed for two major reasons. Firstly the BMC had to twice re invite tenders as the tender which was floated last year did not include the Goods & Services Tax (GST) component. Secondly, in May 2016, the BMC, after calling the bids, awarded contracts for the four bridges construction to two parties, who were under a police investigation in a road scam, of which out of the four bridges one included the Hancock bridge as well. Therefore, an activist filed a Public Interest Litigation(PIL) in the Bombay high court (HC) challenging the contracts on the grounds that both contractors were tainted.

In return in July, the HC cancelled the contracts in ‘the larger public interest’, instructing the BMC to reinvite tenders. This led to one of the contractors, J Kumar Infra, to approach the apex court, which granted the firm interim relief.

However after the Supreme Court gave a green signal to BMC decided to re tender the work keeping the GST component in mind as the previous tender did not include the GST component.

While after the introduction of GST in September last year the state government had asked the BMC to cancel all those tenders which were issued before August 22, 2017 and where GST was not considered in the final costing. “Hence keeping the notification of the state government in mind a short tender was re invited for a week,” said a official.

The Hancock Bridge was dismantled in January 2016, in ten days and due to it central railway for the first time took mega block. In addition as after the bridge was dismantled several track-crossing accidents reported at the site near Sandhurst Road thereby causing massive difficulties for Mumbaikars.