Mumbai: Ex-Congress minister Milind Deora demands CBI probe into road scam

MUMBAI: Former Congress MP and minister Milind Deora on Wednesday demanded a CBI probe into the BMC’s road works. Deora highlighted that the BMC had spent around Rs 12,000 crore on road works in the last five years but still the roads in the city were full of potholes. Deora said that the Rs 12,000 spending on roads was 10% of the National Highway Authority of India's (NHAI) annual budget.
Calling it the Mumbai road scam, Deora said in a tweet, "Between 2017-22, BMC spent Rs 12,000 crore on Mumbai’s roads — a staggering 10% of NHAI’s annual budget Mumbaikars brave potholes every year & deserve to know who is looting India’s richest civic body. I demand a CBI probe. Roads are just the tip of the iceberg,” Deora said.
“Can anyone believe that Rs 12,000 crore have been spent in road repairs in Mumbai? This is 10% of NHAI’s annual budget, this is hard to even imagine. The Bombay High Court (HC) is also hearing this case. But to get to the truth, a thorough investigation is needed. So I demand a CBI enquiry. The state government has the power to order a CBI enquiry against BMC road contracts. But does the state government have the political will to order a CBI enquiry. BMC is Asia’s richest municipal body, if corruption stops here, it will make a big difference to the lives of people,” Deora said.
Deora also pointed out that the BMC spent an additional Rs 45 crore every year on fixing potholes using technologies like cold mix. This cost the BMC an additional Rs 225 crore from 2017 to 2022.
Following a diktat from chief minister Eknath Shinde last month that all roads should be cement concretised by 2024 to eradicate the pothole problem, the BMC recently floated tenders worth Rs 5,800 crore works for 400km of roads- more than twice the Rs 2,000 crore it spends on an average annually on repairs.