MUMBAI: The BMC has levied fines of ₹37.57 crore on nine road contractors for various reasons, including quality issues and delay in carrying out road works. While a majority of the penalties ( ₹32 crore) were imposed on four contractors for the delay in Phase 1 of road cement-concretisation (CC) works, about six contractors have been penalised with fines of ₹2.22 crore in Phase 2 of the CC road works.
The contractors in question are Nagarjuna Construction Company Ltd, Eagle Infra India Ltd, Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd and Dineshchandra Agrawal Infracon for Phase 1 of the CC road works and Nagarjuna Construction Co Ltd, GHV (India) Ltd, Gawar Constructions, AIC Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, R P Shah Infraprojects Pvt Ltd and BSCPL Infrastructure Pvt Ltd for Phase 2.
Overall, the BMC has managed to recover ₹16.33 crore of the fines while penalties worth ₹21.17 crore are pending recovery. One contractor was penalised twice. Additionally, another penalty of ₹12 crore was levied on Nagarjuna Construction Company ( ₹8 crore) and Eagle Construction Company ( ₹4 crore) for slow work. This increases the total penalty levied on all contractors to ₹49 crore.
“While most of the contract conditions do stipulate specific amounts by way of fines, at times we have penalised beyond that,” additional municipal commissioner (projects) Ashwini Bangar told HT. “This is to ensure that contractors who do shoddy work feel the pinch. It also sends a message to other contractors that projects are being monitored and vigilance is being maintained. Hence, even the Quality Monitoring Agency, which is supposed to supervise projects, has been fined.”
Bangar explained that the fine might appear meagre compared to the worth of the contract but the idea was to send out a strong message that substandard work would not be tolerated. “These are decisions taken on a case-to-case basis, and they do get the desired deterrent impact on the ground,” he said. Currently, the BMC has taken up concretisation of 693.85 km of roads in the city worth ₹17,000 crore, of which it has completed 253 km of CC roads.
A V Shenoy of the Mumbai Mobility Forum, who was part of an apex committee on roads, said that road works were handled by cartels of contractors who refused to let outsiders work on road projects. “They are least deterred by penalties. Even if they are blacklisted, they simply return with a new name,” he said. Shenoy suggested that the BMC do away with the system of awarding contracts to the lowest bidder and instead consider various quality parameters besides ensuring citizen audits of public projects.
