Road repair work to start as strike called off

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will now be able to start post-monsoon road repair work that was scheduled to begin in October, as civic engineers have decided to call off their strike temporarily. The engineers’ union declared it has put the strike on hold till Thursday, after their first demand — that an FIR be lodged against MNS corporators Sandeep Deshpande and Santosh Dhuri — was met Thursday.

The annual road repair work on over 900 roads and 300 junctions scheduled to start in October would have suffered a setback had the engineers gone on the strike. With no manpower to supervise the roadwork, it would have taken the already-delayed project longer to see the light of day. Municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta had confirmed that it would be impossible to start the roadwork if the engineers had continued with their strike.

Sainath Rajadhyaksh, who heads the civic engineers’ union, said the strike might be resumed later on.“We have made several demands. If these are not met by Thursday, we will launch a strike again,” he said.