Mumbai: Ahead of the BMC election, the civic body has undertaken repair and beautification work in its 24 administrative wards.
Accordingly, a tender has been invited to repair and beautify footpaths in B ward which consists of areas such as Dongri and Mohammad Ali road. The deadline set to complete this work is March 2023.
Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had announced in September, Rs. 1700 crores project of Mumbai beautification under which roads across the city will be resurfaced, footpaths will be repaired, road dividers - open spaces below flyovers will be beautified etc. Few days back the BMC invited tenders for repairing and resurfacing of roads across the city. Now the BMC has identified 8 footpaths, road dividers in B ward.
Dhanji Hirlekar, assistant municipal commissioner of B ward said, " The work will be carried out in phases. The footpath will be repaired, the electric pole will be reinstated, some wall paintings, street lights will be put up for better illumination. Also zebra crossings will be painted fresh and traffic signals will be in good condition at important junctions. The work will be completed by March 2023".
The major challenge that the BMC will face in this project is that most of the roads and footpaths in B ward are encroached by the illegal hawkers. "The hawkers policy has not yet been implemented, the streets that were marked for hawking have now changed a lot. Most of the footpaths and roads are encroached, we had taken a major drive in September during the demolition of the dilapidated Carnac bunder bridge. Around 800 hawkers were removed from these areas to clear the route for traffic, said civic officials of B ward.
"We will clear the hawkers first and in the second phase we will work on the maintenance part, so that the hawkers don't return on footpaths," said Hirlekar.
