Thane: IIT begins auditing city road works

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, has started auditing the road works in Thane. Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) chief Abhijit Bangar said during the civic body budget presentation that he won’t tolerate poor condition of roads in the district and had promised a third-party audit.

The road works in Thane have been undertaken in two phases. While the first phase, for which the roads department received Rs214 crore, has reached its final stage, the second phase (with funds amounting to Rs391 crore) has also picked up pace.

Bangar said, “We want all 283 road works to be of excellent quality. We planned to announce the completion before May 31, ahead of the monsoon. The third-party audit will be conducted to check whether the proposed quality has been achieved.”

IIT team has reached Thane

For the audit, a team from IIT has reached Thane, with KV Krishna Rao and TMC engineer together inspecting the work on site. The quality of asphalt is being checked at the manufacturing units and various tests are being conducted to check the quality of construction as well as whether the specification of construction material is as per criteria, an official said.

Bangar said, “We have also announced a huge financial penalty if potholes are found on roads. In such cases, the contractor will have to pay Rs1 lakh for each pothole.”