After failing to fill potholes during Ganeshotsav, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has now sought bids from national and international construction companies for contracts worth `1,400 crore, as it is unhappy with the work carried out by local contractors.
As per mayor Sunil Prabhu’s plans, a meeting would be held with the bigger players in the construction field to convince them to take up road contracts.
The mayor has invited companies including Larsen & Toubro, J. Kumar, Hindustan Construction Company, Simplex Infrastructure, Gammon India, etc. to take up the works.
In the coming weeks, the BMC intends to float bids for laying new roads in Mumbai at the estimated cost of around `1,400
crore. A combination of cement concrete and asphalt roads will be made, and one of the arterial roads will include Marine Drive.
These road repair plans were discussed in the civic body’s group leaders meeting. However, during the visarjan weekend, Mumbaikars would continue to face hardship due to the BMC’s shoddy work.
The latest statistics show that there are as many as 1,575 potholes under different agencies including the BMC, which are yet to be filled.
This year, the BMC hiked the budget for pothole repairs by 50 per cent to `60 crore. Last year, it had allocated `40 crore for the same job.
However, this is not the first time that the civic body has shown its eagerness to rope in big players for road works. Earlier, reputed firms had found it difficult to break the nexus and syndicate of local contractors who would bag all BMC projects.
Although Mr Prabhu is hopeful that bigger players will take up the offer.
The reason being that most companies feel that they will be forced to underbid the tender, and later hike the project cost, which would go against their goodwill.