Uddhav inspects BMC’s de-silting work
Reviewing the ongoing desilting work to be completed before monsoon, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday inspected five major drains across the city.
Thackeray said he is not concerned about the progress report of the desilting work but hopes for a flood-free Mumbai this year.
The visit included Oshiwara River, Mithi River (Kurla), Vakola River, Irla Nullah and Mithi River (Mahim).
Thackeray’s comment on the progress report comes days after civic body’s standing committee criticism on the current pace of de-silting work. The committee said the department needs to speed up its work to meet its May 31 deadline.
In addition, Sena supremo surprisingly rubbished any claims of the controversial Rs 150 crore de-silting scam of the civic body. The desilting scam that came to light in 2015 led unearthed the nexus between civic officials and tainted contractors.
At least 32 contractors were named in the de-silting scam, in which they were found guilty of irregularities in 23 different works. The civic administration has blacklisted these contractors, and these 32 contractors cannot participate in any kind of bidding process for the contracts awarded by BMC for next five years.
Meanwhile, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s Storm Water Drain department claims to have completed 42% of the desilting work till May 6.
According to senior civic officials, as of April 29, the civic body had removed 75.28 metric tonnes of silt metric tonnes of silt from nullahs. The officials claimed that this year’s work has been very satisfactory and that they have managed to speedily carry out the de-silting work. Last year, BMC had completed only 22.12% of the work till May 4.
The BMC is expected to remove 1.73 lakh metric tonnes of waste before monsoon starts by the middle of June. Every year, BMC pushes its own deadline of May 31 to complete the desilting work.