State has spent RS11K cr on ongoing infra projects
THIS ACCOUNTS FOR ALMOST 11% OF THE TOTAL ESTIMATED COST OF THESE PROJECTS AT RS1.08 LAKH CRORE
The state has so far spent more than Rs11,000 crore on vital infrastructure projects, most of them in Mumbai, with planning on some of these going on for years and some unlikely to take off any time soon.
According to the Economic Survey of Maharashtra for 2016-17, two agencies, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), have spent Rs11,387.66 crore on 23 ongoing infrastructure projects. This accounts for almost 11% of the total estimated cost of these projects at Rs1.08 lakh crore.
At least six of these works are such that they have been on the government’s to-do list for Mumbai for more than five years without any sign of nearing actual construction. The two agencies put together have already spent Rs 96.44 crore on five of these projects — the Western freeway sea link, Bandra-versova sea link, Mumbai-pune expressway capacity augmentation, Viraralibaug multi modal corridor, and the Sewri-nhava Sheva trans harbor link — while not even a single brick has been laid.
“The amount has been spent on various feasibility studies, consultant reports, peer reviews and so on. Every time a project gets delayed, we have to update the detailed project report and the financial and technical viability,” a government official said.
Information of expenditure incurred on the sixth project, the Pedder Road flyover by MSRDC, was not available in the economic survey report. The contentious project, costing Rs380 crore, was officially taken up in 2012-13, as per the economic survey report, though it had been in the planning phases for several years before that. Residents along the proposed alignment, including singer Lata Mangeshkar, have staunchly opposed the project.
With the state government now pushing for a coastal freeway from south Mumbai to the western suburbs to be built on reclamation, the Pedder Road flyover as well as the western freeway sea link project is likely to be scrapped though there has been no official word on it yet. The MSRDC spent Rs 18.58 crore on the Rs 4,143-crore western freeway sea links, which were planned in 1998-99. The corporation is still pushing for the Rs 4,419-crore Bandra-versova sea link, on which it has already spent Rs 16.57 crore, as a link in the coastal road project.
The Mumbai-pune expressway augmentation, trans-harbour link and the multi-modal corridor are now gradually chugging forward with the government having set deadlines of 2019-20, 2021, 2023, respectively.
Other ongoing projects that the government is spending money on include four Metro rail corridors, with work on three under progress and tendering for the fourth one underway, the monorail, an elevated road between BKC and the Eastern Express Highway.
The MMRDA has spent Rs203.13 crore on three of the four Metro projects where civil works are already underway. The elevated Andheri East-dahisar East Metro is estimated to be completed by March 2019, and the elevated Dahisar-dn Nagar and the underground Colaba-bandraseepz corridors by 2020-21.
On the Chembur-wadala-jacobcirclemonorail,themmrda has already spent Rs 2,337 crore as against the total estimated cost of Rs 2,460 crore. However, even after nine years of starting work, only the first phase till Wadala is operational. Despite having completed 98 percent of the second phase, the commissioning of the second phase is delayed due to shortage of rakes.