On July 3, 2018, a portion of the bridge collapsed, leading to the death of two pedestrians. (Express File)While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is set to shut down the Gopal Krishna Gokhale Bridge in Andheri for at least two years, a recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), prepared in June 2022, has shown that the civic body awarded contract for doing staging works to provide temporary support to the bridge to a contractor in 2019 without going through proper tendering channel and deliberately delaying the process, giving undue advantage to the contractor.
The report stated that the approximate cost of carrying out the staging works was pegged at Rs 4.66 crore and, since the BMC didn’t float any tender for this project, it lost the opportunity to obtain competitive rate for the said work which gave undue advantage to the contractor to whom the contract was awarded. The CAG report also stated that the process of awarding the contract was delayed by eight months.
The Gokhale bridge is a primary connector between Andheri East and West. On July 3, 2018, a portion of the bridge collapsed, leading to the death of two pedestrians and injuring three other pedestrians.
Following the incident, the civic body carried out a structural audit of the bridge through an empaneled consultant and the report was submitted on August 23, 2018, one month after the mishap.
The consultant’s report directed the civic body to demolish and reconstruct the existing bridge and to carry out staging works as a precautionary measure to provide temporary support to the super structure of the existing bridge from its base by using structural steel trestle. The cost of carrying out the staging works was pegged at Rs 4.66 crore.
However, the CAG report stated that the approval for the staging works were taken after a delay of eight months, on April 24, 2019. “The decision should have taken immediately after the submission of the audit report and tender for demolition and reconstruction should have been invited considering the urgency of work,” the CAG report said.
“Hence due to the undue delay in taking the decision, the work was awarded to M/S J Kumar without inviting tender thereby rendering undue advantage to the contractor. The department lost the opportunity to obtain competitive rate of work,” the CAG report further stated.
Interestingly, the work done by the aforementioned contractor was also under CAG’s scanner and, in the same report, the CAG mentioned that the work for construction of a grade separator at Telli Gully in Andheri (East) was awarded to this contractor at 22.5 per cent above the estimated cost of Rs 101 crore and stated that the bills paid to the contractor and the consultant, though called for scrutiny, were not furnished.
Meanwhile, the BMC in its reply stated that the said work was of urgent nature and no other agency was working in the vicinity of the bridge site. “M/S J Kumar was earlier awarded the work of Telli Gully, which is near the site. Further, no agency was appointed to carry out this miscellaneously. Hence, the work was awarded to M/S J Kumar,” the BMC’s reply said.
The CAG, however, had labelled BMC’s reply as not satisfactory. “The reply of the department is not tenable as substantial time lapsed after the audit carried out by the appointed consultant and during the nine-month delay period, a separate tender could have been floated and awarded through short tender notice,” the CAG said.