BMC appoints eight agencies to monitor road quality

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has appointed eight Quality Management Agencies (QMA) to monitor the quality standards of city roads. These agencies will see whether contractors are constructing roads in accordance with the approved standards or not. Along with these agencies, the BMC road department officers, too, will monitor the quality of roads.

Added all together, the metropolis has a total of 2,000 km roads; of which 1,000 asphalt roads have been converted into concrete ones. In this year, the civic body has planned to concretise 200 km roads. The BMC, in its budget, has made provision of around Rs 2,200 crore for the construction and repairs of roads.

According to the BMC, the monitoring of the construction quality of road works was being done only by engineers in the road department. Along with the road works, these officers had to do administrative work and zonal work as well, and were overburdened with other responsibilities, too. Considering the high workload, municipal administrator Iqbal Singh Chahal and additional municipal commissioner P Velarasu had directed the administration to appoint QMA agencies.

Accordingly, eight agencies have been appointed. The BMC has divided Mumbai into seven zones for operational ease. So, the administration has appointed one agency for each of the six zones and two agencies will monitor the seventh zone.

According to a BMC officer, "These agencies will see whether all criteria mentioned in the tender has been followed or not. Moreover, it will also keep a watch on ready mix concrete machines.We believe that with the dual monitoring by the QMAs and BMC officials, every small aspect at every step of the construction could be monitored well.”

The ruling Shiv Sena had kept its focus on improving the roads and bridges in the election year, and the civic budget focused on mega road projects like the coastal road, Goregaon Mulund Link Road, and multiple bridges.

Apart from the focus on the quality of roads, the BMC has also cleared a proposal for painting 438 roads in the city with thermoplastic colour at the cost of Rs 20 crore. Earlier, the thermoplastic colours were used only for important roads, but now even the internal roads in the city will be made more attractive with markings that would be clearly visible at night.