Civic body fines contractor for shoddy road work

Mumbai: Complaints of shoddy road work have started coming in well before the monsoon keeps its date with the city. Actor Farhan Akhtar tweeted on Tuesday about the poor condition of St. Andrews Road in Bandra.

The actor tweeted: “I suspect the contractor that paved St. Andrews Road in Bandra has used a seesaw instead of a leveller #zeropointsforquality,” Mr. Akhtar was referring to the levelling fault of the road wherein manhole chambers were not raised or lowered to level with the finished road work, leading to the road being unevenly levelled on the same stretch. The actor’s tweet was retweeted 179 times.

The BMC has penalised the contractor and ordered him to repair the roads by May 31. Some repair work began on the road on Wednesday.

Congress corporator Asif Zakaria, in whose ward the road falls, said, “The contractor has done a terrible job with the work here and at Mehboob Studio junction. The water table is disturbed, chambers have not been levelled, quality of asphalt is poor and pipelines have burst in some places during the road work. The work should have been complete by now; instead the contractor has made a mockery of it.”

Mr. Zakaria had written to the Municipal Commissioner on May 21 about the issue and even took it up in Wednesday’s standing committee meeting. The BMC’s H west ward office is aware of the matter and it has already slapped a fine on the contractor M/s Maindeep Enterprises.

In a notice dated May 17 , officials mentioned these charges and hit out at the contractor for not removing debris from designated spots. The notice, a copy of which is with The Hindu, has directed the contractor to rectify the problems immediately. “We have already levied a penalty of Rs 50,000 on the contractor. If he does not rectify them in the next two days, we will take strict action,” said Sharad Ughade, Assistant Municipal Commissioner of H West ward.

The deadline for completing road works across teh city ends on Thursday, and the BMC is struggling to meet it. The monsoon is expected to arrive by June 6.