The Shiv Sena controlled BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Tuesday denied charges of irregularities and fraud made by BJP legislator Ashish Shelar in the development of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s ambitious Mumbai coastal road project. ‘’No fraud or irregularities have been committed in the Coastal Road Project undertaken by the BMC. The allegations circulating in this regard are baseless and incorrect. BMC strongly denies all the allegations,’’ the civic body said in its statement.
BMC has issued a clarification on Shelar’s allegation of embezzlement of Rs 215.65 crore in the name of consultants and contractors. He had further charged that Rs 142.19 crore were paid to the contractor without getting any work done.
BMC has said that all payments due to the contractors are done by following due procedure as per recommendation of Project Management Consultants. As such no payment has been done to the contractors without doing the work.
BMC said the DPR was prepared by M/s. Stup and E.Y. The draft DPR was published on MCGM website in 2015. The DPR was finalized by M/s. Stup and E.Y. and has been peer reviewed by M/s. Frishmann Prabhu. The traffic analysis was done in the said DPR. This was also submitted to MCZMA / MOEF & CC. Further, it added that in no case the open space shall be used for any development / residential / commercial purpose.
According to BMC, the committee for the rehabilitation and resettlement of fisherfolks has already been constituted under the Chairmanship of AMC (ES). The working group of BMC is also formed to interact with the fisherfolks and a number of meetings have taken place with the fisherfolks. It has appointed Tata Institute of Social Sciences and they have started their work.
According to BMC, the Supreme Court of India vide order dtd. 17.12.2019 and dtd. 07.10.2020 has allowed it to carry out the reclamation, build the road and secure the road for the Coastal Road Project. The development of about 70 hector as green space to be used as parks, cycle tracks, butterfly park, etc will be developed after Supreme Court allows the development thereon.
Further, BMC said since the work of Coastal Road is in progress and the planning for the landscaping plan is now at a preliminary stage. A preliminary plan has been prepared by the General Consultant and the same is in the process of approval. The actual implementation of landscaping in green open space will get materialized only after the permission of the Supreme Court of India.
