Maharashtra CM inaugurates MMRDA’s second building

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis inaugurated the new building of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) at BKC on Saturday.

The building was originally slated to be completed in December 2012 but it missed four deadlines which resulted in the escalation of its project cost by Rs 19 crore.

In an RTI query filed by activist Anil Galgali, it was revealed that the MMRDA has spent Rs 106 crore in total for construction of the new building. However, when the project was first proposed on December 2007, the estimated cost was pegged at Rs 87 crore. “It is due to the delay in meeting deadlines for constructing the building that cost the state government to allocate an additional 19 crore,” said Mr Galgali.

He further added, “MMRDA missed four deadlines in total. The first deadline that they missed was of December 2012 after which three deadlines of September 2013, December 2014 and May 2015 were also missed. This resulted in cost escalation and wastage of public money.”

In the RTI reply, the MMRDA has blamed the civic authorities and environment department for the delay in granting No objection Certificate (NOC). Also, there was some change in the original plan, which caused further delay.

The new building is located right behind the existing building at BKC and is a nine-storey structure equipped with modern facilities such as an auditorium, board rooms, two-level basement, two service floors, CCTV cameras and ample parking space. All the floors provide column-free space in the entire office. Also, the main staircase and lift lobbies are provided with granite flooring.

“The new MMRDA office is spacious and has state-of-the-art facility. Also, the building is eco-friendly as it can harvest rain water, use solar energy and treat sewage,” said Mr Fadnavis after inaugurating the building.

Interestingly, even before the new office was inaugurated, the engineering department had already shifted there due to space crunch.

“We desperately needed this new building as work on big-ticket projects has already started and we need to accommodate our associates like those from Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) who are helping us in our projects. The old building can now be exclusively used for work related to Metro corridors,” said an MMRDA official.