The Indian Express                 29.10.2013

Civic body slaps Rs 2 crore fine on road contractors

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has imposed a fine of Rs
2.29 crore on road contractors who have failed to carry out pothole
repairs on time and have not maintained the standard quality of roads.
The penalty has been slapped on pothole-repair contractors and
contractors of roads that have recently resurfaced and are under the
defect liability period.

Mayor Sunil Prabhu said, “We may even consider increasing the
penalty amount and blacklisting some of the contractors. This year, we
will also fine our own road engineers for negligence after we calculate
the penalties on the new points system.”

According to the civic roads department the highest penalties on
defaulters include — Transconduct Pvt Ltd roughly fined Rs 25 lakh for
shoddy repair works in Andheri (west) and Dahisar, Atasha Ashirwad fined
over Rs 12 lakh for poor work in Andheri (East) and Kandivali and RPS
Infraprojects collectively fined Rs 11.5 lakh in joint venture
contracts.

This year, BMC had issued pre-monsoon contracts worth Rs 59 crore
for filling potholes in the island city, eastern and western suburbs.
Around 14 firms were appointed for the work. According to the terms of
the contract, contractors had 48 hours to fill potholes assigned to
them. A fine of Rs 1,000 for a day’s delay was set as a condition in
2012.

In July, following increasing public criticism, the civic body
conducted a quality test on potholes that were filled. It was revealed
that 25 per cent of the cold mix used to repair potholes is substandard,
indicating misappropriation of funds by contractors. The civic body
imposed a fine worth Rs 2.05 crore on contractors and even cancelled the
contract of Atasha Ashirwad.

While the amount of fines imposed on contractors has shown a
rough 30 per cent increase from previous year’s (where Rs 1.8 crore
worth of penalties were levied on contractors), the number of potholes
reported has increased by close to 60 per cent. According to the BMC’s
pothole tracking website www.voiceofcitizen.com, 38,500 pothole
complaints were registered this year.

Last year, in four months, citizens reported 25,000 potholes on the website.

“The amounts of fine have been imposed taking into account the
quality failure. Payments of the contractors will be accordingly
deducted. There may be an increase in the number of potholes reported
because our own engineers are using the website to upload the work they
are undertaking. Also, people are now more aware of this system of
reporting,” a senior civic official of the roads department said.