BMC woos back contractor for Rs 6,000-crore road concrete works

MUMBAI: After much back and forth, the BMC has got back on board the contractor which had withdrawn from the Rs 6,000-crore mega road concretisation project.
NCC Ltd had won the bid to carry out works in Zone III (western suburbs) and had quoted 4.5% above the official estimate. The estimated project cost for works in the zone was Rs 1,223 crore. However, last week, the company had written a letter of regret to the BMC, stating it cannot carry out the work at par. In such cases, the BMC could offer the work to the second-lowest bidder or refloat the tender, but civic sources said the municipal body negotiated with the same contractor as it would have led to further delay in work.
Confirming that NCC Ltd has agreed to get the work done at par, additional municipal commissioner P Velrasu said: "We are hoping that the works on all the roads, for which permissions have been received from the traffic police, will be carried out as per schedule."
Samajwadi MLA and former corporator Rais Shaikh, however, raised doubts over the contractor's "sudden agreement" and said he feared that the quality of work may suffer. "Why does the BMC need to convince a contractor to come on board again? I fear that the contractor's initial unwillingness could adversely affect the speed and quality of road works," claimed Shaikh.
The BMC's road concretisation plan is the brainchild of chief minister Eknath Shinde, who on July 23 last year, directed it to concretise all city roads over the next two years in an attempt to rid them of potholes.
The BMC has divided the Rs 6,000-crore works into five packets: In the island city area, 212 roads are to be concretised, eastern suburbs 181 roads and western 516 roads. In the western suburbs, the works have been divided into three separate packets - zone III, zone IV and zone VII. Five contractors were selected after a biding process.
The mega road concretisation project.was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi a month ago.
Last week, NCC Ltd backed out though. This prompted BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal to instruct the other four contractors to start the works immediately.
The road concreting works has started at about 12 locations, including Captain Prakash Pethe Marg at Cuffe Parade, S V P Road in Girgaum, K M Munshi Road in Gamdevi, Sonapur Lane in Bhandup, Padmakar Ramchandra Kangutkar Road in Vikhroli East and G V Scheme Road in Mulund.