Even as earlier allegations of corruption still linger, fresh claims of irregularities into road works have taken the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) by storm.
Even as earlier allegations of corruption still linger, fresh claims of irregularities into road works have taken the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) by storm. Senior Congress leader and MLA Vijay Wadettiwar have alleged a scam to the tune of Rs 5,000 crore in municipal road works in the last five years. He has also demanded a judicial probe into the matter.
Mr Wadettiwar alleged that contractors, in connivance with civic officials, have duped the BMC by not carrying actual works, but instead submitted inflated bills. To substantiate his allegations, he presented detailed documents of road works in western suburbs. “The BMC has spent about Rs 15,000 crore on the roads works in western suburbs in the last five years. Of them, the work carried out in the year 2012-13 on total 91 roads and 33 junctions is a major scam. Road works worth Rs 970 crore works were carried out, in which there are 70 per cent irregularities. There is a need to carry out judicial probe into this scam,” he alleged.
According to him, the five contractors who carried out these works are RPS Infrastructure, Relcon Infrastructure, Mahavir Infrastructure, Vitrag construction and KR Constructions. Of them, Union minister Nitin Gadkari’s son is also the partner of one of the firms Relcon Infrastructure, said Mr Wadettiwar.
He further said that in case of Hedgewar road in H-West ward, its length and width has been shown as 510m and 12.2m against the actual measurement of 140m and 6m respectively. The BMC cleared bills worth Rs 4.78 crore for this work. In K-West ward, the length of 200-metre Baptist road was shown as 825m, whereas width was shown as 13.4m against the actual width of 6.4m. For this the contractor exacted Rs 5.81 crore from the civic body, he said.
However, the BJP has refuted the allegations saying they are baseless. “BJP never supports any kind of corruption. If there are any irregularities in it, the civic chief can probe it,” said BJP group leader Manoj Kotak.
