CAG questions BMC on traffic study
MUMBAI: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), the country’s apex public expenditure auditing body, has questioned the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) over its traffic estimates for the ambitious Mumbai Coastal Road Project (MCRP) and stated in its report that scrutiny of records revealed that a “detailed and proper analysis of traffic for Mumbai Coastal Road Project was not done”.
The CAG submitted its report to the BMC in July 2021, a copy of which was accessed by HT. The CAG asked the BMC to clarify whether Metro services (existing as well as under construction) were considered while preparing its traffic study. It also pulled up the BMC stating that some of its estimations “appeared to be imaginary”.
“The CAG had raised certain points in regards to the traffic study of Coastal Road project. However, we had satisfactorily responded to them. We are complying on all the points that have been raised by the CAG,” said a senior BMC official from engineering department of Coastal Road who did not wish to be named.
A brief background
In 2009, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) conducted a Comprehensive Transportation Study (CTS) that first mooted the need for a coastal road. In 2011, a Joint Technical Committee, under the chairmanship of the Municipal Commissioner of the BMC, recommended a 35.60 km-long Coastal Road consisting of roads based on reclamation, bridges, elevated roads and tunnels on the western side of
Mumbai. This was meant to run from Kandivli to Nariman Point. The BMC commissioned a traffic study of the Coastal Road in 2015 and started work on a 9.98 km stretch from Princess Street flyover to Worli — referred to as the southern part of the Coastal Road — in October 2018.
Pain points
According to the CAG report, the BMC did not take proper consideration of the cost benefit ratio, average daily traffic report, car ownership and population growth and account for the Metro corridors in the city.
“It was observed that there are works related to 15 Metro lines spanning a network of 356.972 km with 226 stations in pipeline. Out of which line-1 (11.07 km) was made operational in 2014. A total of 88.88 km of Metro network falls under the southern part of the city. It was estimated (in January 2019) that there will be a daily ridership of 4.50 lakh with an annual ridership of 12.60 crore. It was observed that MSRDC and MMRDA had considered the Metro network and its ridership while computing the traffic on the northern part of the Coastal Road,” it said.
“However, there is no specific consideration and analysis on the Metro network (southern part) as such the actual traffic which usually prefers local train services, BEST to private vehicles would opt for Metro services only as an alternative to cars/taxis,” the report stated. The CAG acknowledged that the Coastal Road would be used by fast-moving four wheelers like cars and taxis, but two and three-wheelers, which account for a chunk of the traffic in this southern section would not be able to use the Coastal Road. “Two and three wheelers account for 20% of the actual number of cars that are not allowed on southern part of this road. This indicated that the entire project was designed mainly for fasting moving vehicles as half of the traffic would be using Western Express Highway and Freeways,” it noted.
The CAG report called into question the BMC’S estimates. “It was observed that in main traffic report, the car ownership per 1000 population was pegged at 139 (2011), 204 (2021), and 266 (2031) and thereafter it would stabilise at 180 car ownerships per 1000 population. Further, car growth was huge during 2014-24 and 2024-34. But at the same time for corresponding years, the actual population was estimated at an average of 2% growth. These figures appear to be imaginary and the department was asked to justify the figures.”
BMC responses
HT had previously reported that the CAG report also questioned the BMC over a sharp increase in construction cost from ₹252 crore per kilometre in 2011 to ₹1274 crore in 2018, a 405% rise. It also raised questions over separate spends amounting to ₹200 crore in an inspection report between April 2016 and March 2020.
In a press conference on Tuesday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ashish Shelar said: “The CAG report has questioned the BMC on several issues ranging from over Rs 200 crore expenditure towards clearing bills of contractors and consultants to the traffic study and project report prepared by the BMC for the project. The CAG has also questioned BMC as to why they have not submitted a plan on utilisation of green space that is being reclaimed to the union environment ministry? This questions the BMC’S intention to keep green space intact nearby coastal road.”
Responding to the allegations about irregularities, the BMC issued a statement on Tuesday.
“No fraud or irregularities have been committed in the Coastal Road Project undertaken by the BMC. The allegations circulating in this regard are baseless and incorrect. BMC strongly denies all the allegations. The first allegation is no traffic analysis done and traffic study is flawed. But the draft report was published on BMC website in 2015. The DPR was finalised by M/s. Stup and E.Y. and has been peer reviewed by M/s. Frishmann Prabhu. The traffic analysis was done in the said DPR. This was also submitted to Maharashtra Coast Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) and Union environment ministry.”
On the over Rs 200 crore payment to contractors and consultants, the BMC said: “All payments due to the contractors are done by following due procedure as per recommendation of Project Management Consultants. As such no payment has been done to the contractors without doing the work.”