Ravi Raja, the former Congress corporator and opposition leader in the BMC has written a letter to the municipal commissioner, Iqbal Singh Chahal, urging him to scrap the contract awarded to M/s S P Singala Construction Private Limited for the construction of the elevated road at Khindipada, Mulund, and the six-lane flyover at Ratnagiri Chowk, Goregaon.
Raja has alleged that the said company was the one that had been constructing the bridge on the Ganga in Bihar, which collapsed on Sunday. It would be a great risk if the BMC were to allow such a company to construct its two flyovers on the GMLR.
Bihar Bridge Collapse
A 3.2km-long, under-construction four-lane bridge across the Ganga at Bhagalpur, collapsed for the second time in 14 months on Sunday. It collapsed on the Sultanganj side in April 2022 and on Sunday evening, the Khagaria-end caved. Luckily, there were no casualties. The total cost incurred in the construction of the bridge was Rs 1,710 crore and the work should have been completed by March 2020.
The video of the collapsing bridge has gone viral and the people of Bihar are asking Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to take strict action against the person responsible. The bridge was inaugurated in 2014 by Kumar.
Ravi Raja alleges Company Got Bid to Build 3 Bridges on GMLR
Ravi Raja has alleged that the BMC has given a contract to the same company to construct three bridges on the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR). The letter stated that on December 20, 2021, the standing committee of the BMC had passed a proposal on the recommendation of administration. In the said proposal, the work of construction of the six-lane flyover bridge at Ratnagiri Hotel Chowk at Goregaon was mentioned, as was the construction of the flyover at Khindipada, Mulund, and another six-lane bridge at Dr Hedgewar Chowk were assigned to M/s S P Singala Construction Private Limited, for Rs 66,60,67,800.
Work at GMLR Substandard: Ravi Raja
Raja said that GMLR was an important project for Mumbai. However, it was being alleged that the ongoing work at the GMLR is substandard and there is a possibility of a repeat of the Bihar incident. If this company is allowed to proceed with further construction at the GMLR, the BMC is likely to lose thousands of crores of rupees, Raja argued. He requested the commissioner to not award any work to this company, scrap the existing contract and blacklist the company. He also suggested that the BMC should finish the remaining work on the GMLR through the civic risk-and-cost system.
