Following the road scam in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had decided to do away with third party auditors, who had proved to be negligent in work.

However, in a new announcement, the BMC has decided to appoint quality assessment groups to oversee the maintenance of roads within the guarantee period. The payment to the contractor will be released only after these assessment groups approve the quality of the road construction.

Deferred payments

In another experiment to tackle the poor quality of roads, the civic body has introduced a system of deferred payments to road contractors. For new contracts, 80% of the payment will be made after the completion of work, while 20% will be during the guarantee period. Some road projects will be awarded based on a 60:40 formula.

The deferred payments are meant to ensure that the contractors fulfil their responsibility of maintaining the road within the guarantee period. If a road develops potholes during this period, it will be the contractor’s responsibility and not the BMC’s to fix them. The system has been brought in as the BMC received a large number of complaints from residents about potholed roads and civic officials had to follow up with the contractors to get the roads repaired.

From now on, to assess if the contractor is properly maintaining the road during the guarantee period, the BMC will select quality groups through global competition. “The payments shall only be released to the contractor if the quality group can validate that the road is as per the quality mentioned in the contract,” Municipal Commissioner Praveen Pardeshi said in his budget speech on Tuesday.

The Municipal Commissioner said the quality groups will comprise auditing firms or individuals with technical audit experience.

Vijay Singhal, additional municipal commissioner in-charge of roads, said, “We are also discussing including public representatives in the committee. So far, contractors were not serious about maintaining roads during the defect liability period, which led to poor roads. With staggered payments, a contractor will be paid 80% of the amount upon completion, while the rest will be paid during or at the end of this guarantee period. There has to be accountability.”

False reports

The Municipal Commissioner said the money will be released after completion of work every year in the defect liability period. A charge sheet in the road scam had revealed that two auditing companies had given false reports to protect the contractors’ shoddy work.

The police had arrested 42 people from the two auditing firms, besides contractors and civic officers.