Mumbai, March 24 Amid allegations of scam and demand for probe by the Economic Offences Wing, the Maharashtra government on Monday cracked the whip and asked the contractors to complete the all ongoing road concretisation works in Mumbai by May 31.
The government also directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to not take up any new works.
“The meeting was extremely useful to solve the grievances of people of Mumbai. All the issues were discussed positively. It has been decided to complete the work by May 31 and no new works will be taken up. A review meeting of this will be held by the end of April month,” said Maharashtra minister and guardian minister of Mumbai suburbs, Ashish Shelar.
Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narvekar on Monday had called a meeting of all legislators from Mumbai to discuss the alleged mismanagement and irregularities in the road concretisation work announced in Mumbai. Last week, all party legislators had targeted Urban Development Department headed by deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde over these issues after which the Speaker had ordered to hold the meeting.
Further, the government has also directed that Additional Municipal Commissioners will hold meetings with officials of various utilities that run underground and assistant commissioners have been asked to prepare a timetable of the ongoing concretisation of the roads. “It was also discussed to check the feasibility as to whether smaller roads can be made of asphalt, instead of concretisation,” said BJP legislator Amit Satam.
Shiv Sena (UBT) legislator Aaditya Thackeray had raised the issue of irregularities in the construction of Mumbai's roads.
Last week, he wrote to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis demanding an investigation by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police into the alleged Mumbai road scam of 2023-24.
No decision on this has however been made in this regard at today’s meeting.
After the meeting, Thackeray said that he had raised the issues of cost escalations and advance mobility funds given to road contractors.
“It has been directed to provide documents for the same,” he said.
On Friday, ruling and opposition members in the state assembly cornered DCM and urban development minister Eknath Shinde over the issue of concretisation of Mumbai roads.
All party legislators slammed the state government over alleged irregularities in the work of concretisation of Mumbai's roads. On Monday, Shinde did not attend the entire meeting but arrived at the very end. It was for the first time after the split in Shiv Sena, Shinde and Aaditya were present though did not talk to each other.
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