Santacruz’s Bhargav Road, built earlier this year, has noticeable flaws, infuriating locals who say the job was done poorly. The road has started to disintegrate in places where it was installed as recently as October.
Hetal Gala, a former local BJP corporator, claimed that the building was hurried and did not have enough time to cure. “Nagarjuna Construction Company, an infrastructure and construction firm headquartered in Hyderabad, is doing this work. Gala added that the concrete roads have a five-year defect liability period, but they haven’t even held up properly for five months. “Given the poor quality of the roads laid, it seems that the company lacks the experience to carry out works at this level,” Gala said.
After visiting the site on Wednesday, local BJP MLA Ashish Shelar called for an immediate investigation into the roadways’ quality control and audit procedures. He demanded that the contractors and careless public servants face harsh consequences.
Shelar told TOI that in addition to cracks, potholes have also formed, casting doubt on the type of oversight being carried out by city personnel. The idea of concretising the roads is a fine one, but what good is it if it is not carried out properly? There is a BMC Chowk that should have civic employees on hand to constantly check the job. Money will be wasted as a result of this subpar job.”
The promises made by previous Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde, who referred to concrete roads as the answer to Mumbai’s infamous pothole problem, stand in sharp contrast to this failure. The condition of city roadways today, however, indicates that the goal of a Mumbai devoid of potholes is still a long way off.
When informed, BMC executives stated that they would investigate the matter and take appropriate action against the involved auditor and the contractor in question. “On December 5 of last week, the municipal commissioner also called a meeting wherein the poor quality of the road construction was criticised. “This is being taken seriously,” an officer stated.
At a cost of over Rs 6,080 crore, five companies—Nagarjuna Construction Company, Eagle Infra India, Roadways Solutions India, Megha Engineers & Infrastructure, and Dinesh Chandra Agrawal Infracon—were given a two-year road concreting mega-contract in January 2023.
Source: The Times of India
