Mumbai’s western suburbs to get bulk of road upgrade funds

The western suburbs will get the lion’s share of the funds earmarked by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for concretising Mumbai’s roads. Nearly 65% of the Rs 60.79 billion earmarked for the purpose will be spent there. The BMC’s Roads Department last week re-floated tenders for road concretisation, which had been cancelled on November 1 on account of the poor response. According to the BMC’s website, of the five tenders, three are for the western suburbs, amounting to over Rs 40 billion, followed by the city division which has one tender worth Rs 12.33 billion. A tender worth Rs 8.46 billion has been put out for the eastern suburbs. The earlier Rs 58 billion road-concretising tender in August, cancelled by the BMC on November 1, was the highest in the history of the civic body. Civic officials had then said that the BMC planned to review the reasons for the poor response and, without compromising on quality, make the necessary changes, invite fresh terms and stipulate fresh conditions. The tender on road concretisation was accordingly reissued on Friday. Mumbai already has about 1,000 km of concrete roads. An additional 236.58 km are being constructed in financial year 2022-23 at a cost of Rs 22 billion crore. The BMC has proposed to construct more than 400 km of cement-concrete roads this year and another 423 km of roads next year. See also: Adani Road Transport assigns a project start date to H G InfraPAPs of Sewri-Worli elevated road to reinstate in Shirodkar market