BMC to remove 50% less silt from nullahs this yr: BJP

The civic body termed the BJP’s claims “factually incorrect”.

The BJP on Wednesday concluded its seven-day long inspection of ongoing nullah desilting work. Later in the day, Shelar, along with other BJP leaders, met Municipal Administrator and Commissioner, I S Chahal, and raised nullah cleaning issues. They also demanded the setting up of a task force to oversee pre-monsoon work.

Shelar said that in 2020, the BMC had set a target of removing 3.63 lakh metric tonne of silt and in 2021, the target was increased to 4.11 lakh metric tonne. But in 2022, the BMC revised it down to 2.52 lakh metric tonne, he said.

“This year, the work of nullah cleaning was started one-and-a-half month late and also, 50% less quantity will be removed compared to last year. However, the contract cost has increased from Rs 132 crore in 2021 to Rs 160 crore in 2022. There is no clarity on the increase in cost. If less quantity of silt will be removed from nullahs, then why is the BMC paying more,” asked Shelar while speaking to the media during a press conference at the BJP party office in BMC Headquarter at CSMT.

“Also, the BMC has given the responsibility of silt dumping to contractors without getting details of the locations where it will be dumped. What if they manipulate the record,” asked the BJP leader.

Shelar claimed that he had raised this query before the commissioner but there was no proper answer. “At many locations, nullah desilting work has not even started,” he said. BJP leaders said they will again inspect nullah desilting work after a month.

The BMC, however, denied BJP’s allegation about reducing the quantity of silt to be removed from nullahs. According to BMC officials, there is no change in the quantity of desilting and this year, work has been divided into multiple parts since there was a delay in awarding the contract.

“The claim of less quantity of silt to be removed is factually incorrect. In the first work order, contract to remove 50 per cent of the silt quantity was given. Work order for the remaining 25 per cent will be issued after the review of completed work. After that, 15 percent work will be taken up during monsoon and 10 per cent after monsoon,” said P Velrasu, additional municipal commissioner (projects).

Meanwhile, former mayor and Shiv Sena spokesperson Kishori Pednekar said the BJP was in a hurry (about nullah desilting issue) since the party didn’t have any other work.