Thane: Taking a stern stance against the severe delays in pre-monsoon drain and ditch-cleaning (nalasafai) operations, the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) administration has issued a final warning to negligent contractors. Following revelations that cleaning work remains incomplete across several wards, the civic administration convened an emergency meeting with relevant officials and contractors. The administration explicitly warned that if the work is not completed within the extended deadline, the responsible contractors will face immediate blacklisting.
To ensure that the city does not face severe waterlogging during the monsoon and to minimize public distress, the municipal corporation spends crores of rupees annually on cleaning major city drains and gutters. This year, the desilting campaign was kicked off on April 10, beginning in the Mumbra area. However, elected public representatives soon bombarded the administration with complaints regarding the exceptionally sluggish pace of work.
Unused Machinery and Piles of Silt Raise Accountability Concerns
Investigations revealed shocking instances of negligence where contractors left heavy machinery idle on-site for days after working for just 48 hours. In other areas, despite lowering JCB excavators into the drains, actual cleaning operations were never executed. This has raised serious questions regarding the efficiency of the contractors and the overall quality of the nalasafai drive.
While Mayor Sharmila Pimpolkar and Municipal Commissioner Saurabh Rao had initially set a strict deadline of May 31 for the completion of all desilting work, reality paints a grim picture. Massive piles of excavated silt still lie abandoned along the edges of drains across various neighborhoods. Acknowledging the delay, the civic administration has now pushed the absolute final deadline to June 5.
Madhukar Bodke, Deputy Commissioner of the Solid Waste Management Department, stated that additional manpower and machinery have been deployed on a war footing to finish the remaining work. He reiterated that if contractors fail to deliver high-quality results within the new deadline, stringent legal and administrative action will be taken against them.
Deployment of Additional Manpower
To accelerate the lagging operations, the TMC has significantly increased the workforce in heavily delayed ward committees including Mumbra, Diva, and Majiwada:Ward Committee Previous Workforce Current Augmented Workforce
Mumbra 200 laborers 400 laborers (Doubled)
Diva 130 laborers 200 laborers
Majiwada Standard crew Additional
Furthermore, an extra 10 to 20 laborers have been deployed across other wards depending on local requirements to ensure the city is monsoon-ready in time.
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