Mira Bhayandar: Govt nod for MBMC to raise Rs 500 crore loan for road concretisation in twin city

Mira Bhayandar: The Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) has received an official nod from the state government to raise a loan amounting Rs 500 from a banking institution for concreting its road network across the twin-city.

A government resolution (GR) to this effect was passed by the state’s urban development department (UDD) on Thursday. Notably, a delegation of officials and local legislators had recently met chief minister- Eknath Shinde who had assured to do the needful to ensure that all roads are concretised and pothole free at the earliest. 

Permission subject to various conditions

The erstwhile general body house had passed a resolution allowing concreting work of 45 roads in the twin-city on September 2, 2019. The estimated price tag for the road concrete project was pegged at Rs 904 crore. The civic administration which was staring an acute fund crunch owing to the massive expenditure on medical infrastructure to combat the Covid pandemic in the twin-city had sought permission from the state government authorities to raise funds from Bank of Baroda to execute the first phase of the road concreting work.

The permission granted by the state government is ragged with various conditions including- clearance of all pending instalments of existing loans, revenue augmentation and to create new sources of fund generation, no digging work on newly concretised roads, timely re-payment as per the loan structure specified by the lender and no diversion of the loan amounts for any other purpose. 

“If everything goes as per schedule, tenders will be floated soon and the concreting work will commence in the first week of January-2023,” revealed a highly placed officer.  

Although the tenure of the loan will be of 10 years, clarity eludes the applicable rate of interest (RoI). The ‘CCR A/Stable’ corporate credit rating bagged by the MBMC reflects its strong operating performance, healthy financial risk profile and robust economic base, driven by its close proximity to Mumbai.