Ward officers told to speed up projects ahead of rains

MUMBAI: Municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta, in his monthly review meeting on Saturday, asked all 24 ward officers to speed up road projects, nullahcleaning and trench-filling ahead of the monsoon.

Ward officers were told to closely monitor road projects — including medians, traffic junctions and paver blocks — and the permissions process, and conduct weekly reviews.

They were also told to fill in all trenches before the rains.

Mehta also asked the officers to keep tabs on encroachments, including those caused by hawkers, floor-space index (FSI) violations and illegal slums, and to take measures to clean up the city to keep monsoon-related diseases at bay.

Following the huge fire at the Deonar dumping ground and criticism from the high court on mismanagement of the city’s waste, ward officers have been specifically told to hold meetings with advance locality management (ALM) groups to review waste-segregation practices.

At the standing committee meeting last week, corporators also pulled up the administration over unclean nullahs.

Though the commissioner had asked ward officers in December to clean minor nullahs and box drains, their condition remains the same, the corporators claimed.

Following an investigation into last year’s nullah de silting scam, despite thrice floating tenders for this year the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has not received a satisfactory response from contractors.

Many fear a repeat of last year’s monsoon troubles if the nullahs are not cleaned in time.