Be prepared for potholed drive on both eastern & western highways

In the first rain itself, motorists faced bumper -tobumper traffic on Eastern Express Highway and it is likely to get worse for the entire season.

Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is planning to cancel tenders which were issued for the pre-monsoon repair work for both Eastern Express Highways (EEH) and Western Express Highways (WEH). Work which has not yet started even after monsoon has started.

This is mainly due to the poor response the infrastructure authority has received to its three calls. The authority is losing hope over getting the repair work done.

MMRDA will have to face the flak as the highway work was assigned to them in April, a month after the stone quarries in Navi

Mumbai and Thane were shut down owing to Supreme Court’s order.

Officials said the contractors fear that they would fall short of construction materials after more than 70 stone quarries in Navi Mumbai were shut.

A senior MMRDA official, told the Free Press Journal,

“We are planning to cancel the tenders for the repair work. There is no point in awarding the tenders now since it is difficult to carry out any repair work during the monsoon.”

However, the official has no answer for emergency road repair work during monsoon. The official added, “An emergency road repair work would require roping in a contractor for a short-term period, but unfortunately the contractors are not showing up for the bids.”

Following a poor response to the first call, the authority even changed the tender conditions which allowed contractors to procure construction material from Palghar and Raigad as well. The entire repair project is to cost is Rs 13 crore. MMRDA officials had also agreed to provide additional travelling cost for construction material which would lead to increase in the entire project cost. However, the changes in the conditions too have not yielded a positive response.

The Free Press Journal had reported on June 8 that the third call for the repair work failed to attract contractors. The pre-monsoon road repair work was mandatory as it helps in maintaining the quality of

The Public Works Department recently handed over the highways to MMRDA after the Supreme Court ruling banning sale of alcohol within 500 metres of the highways. Even though MMRDA was appointed as the nodal agency for carrying out the repair work in...