Mira-Bhayandar: MBMC gets ₹500 crore loan approval for road concretisation

Mira-Bhayandar: In a step towards making the twin city free of potholes, the Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) has received an in-principle clearance to its application seeking ₹500 crore as a loan from Bank of Baroda to concreting its road network across the twin-city.

A government resolution allowing the MBMC to raise the loan from the banking institution was passed by the state’s urban development department (UDD) in November 2022. After a detailed survey, the MBMC has outlined a detailed roadmap to concretise 67 roads.

Estimated cost for the road concrete project pegged at ₹1,034 crore

The estimated price tag for the road concrete project has been pegged at ₹1,034 crore. The erstwhile general body house passed a resolution allowing concreting work of 45 roads in the twin city on September 2, 2019. The civic administration which was staring an acute fund crunch owing to the massive expenditure on medical infrastructure to combat the Covid pandemic had sought permission from the state government to raise funds to execute the first phase of the project.

Municipal Commissioner Dilip Dhole said, “Our aim is to provide superior quality roads to citizens. Tenders for the first phase of the work will be floated soon.”

Clarity eludes the applicable rate of interest

Although the tenure of the loan will be of 10 years, clarity eludes the applicable rate of interest. The permission granted by the state government was tagged with various conditions including clearance of all pending instalments of existing loans, revenue augmentation, 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.

The remaining roads will be developed by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).