BMC toughens process for nod to road works

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), after being slammed by the Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) for allowing cost variations in road projects without following mandatory procedure, has decided to alter its permission-granting procedures for road works without taking any direct step toward tackling the larger issue of cost escalations.

BMC's Additional Municipal Commissioner Aseem Gupta said that cost variations are a systemic problem. The CAG report has considered the variations in the usage of savings from an approved contract amount for another road work, he said at the standing committee meeting on January 4.

The CAG had inspected road works between December 2009 and October 2011 in the city, and the Sena-BJP ruled BMC was severely criticised for the poor state of the city’s roads. The increase in cost from the initially-agreed amount, called variation, was 62 per cent for cement-concrete roads and 57 per cent for asphalt roads, the CAG report said.