Monsoon preparedness measures undertaken by the civic administration are “not up to the mark,” says Trushna Vishwasrao, Shiv Sena’s (SS) leader of the house in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). She also blamed the Sena’s coalition partner, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of enjoying the pelf of power, while “blaming its coalition partner for all the faults.”
Ms Vishwasrao told mediapersons, “Last year, serious ommissions and commissions with regard to de-silting works were observed. Some contractors had even submitted bogus property documents of intended dump sites for the silt removed from Mumbai city's nullas [gutters].Our party is being accused of stalling de-silting contracts by our own coalition ally, who sits side-by-side with us on the treasury benches."
Her party colleague and chairman of the standing committee, Yashodhar Phanse, added, “The responsibility for de-silting nullas in Mumbai rests with the civic administration. We are not happy with the quality of work done so far, even as the BMC claims 40 per cent of de-silting works have already been completed. All these contracts should have been cleared at the latest by March end.” He added, “After councillor Dilip Patil raised the issue about where the silt would actually be deposited, we were informed of two sites at Bhiwandi and Thane, as well as a provision to allow the contractors to provide details of the site where the dredged-out silt would be deposited outside Mumbai city. We have taken an undertaking from the civic administration, represented by additional municipal commissioner Sanjay Deshmukh, that the BMC administration would be responsible for any delays in completion of the de-silting work. Only after this did we clear the proposal for a similar contract for the island city and the G South ward.”
Mr Deshmukh told The Hindu , “De-silting is a work in progress. So far 40 per cent is completed, but we will finish the remaining work by May end.”
A BMC spokesperson said, “The de-silting work envisages 60 per cent of the work being completed before the monsoon sets in. Another 20 per cent is completed during the monsoons itself, with the remainder work finished after the monsoons are over.” He was not aware of an earlier policy, which requires 70 per cent of de-silting to be completed before the monsoons, 20 per cent during, and 10 per cent being after the rains.
Former Central Information commissioner and vocal Mumbai resident Shailesh Gandhi says, “According to most reports, the de-silting has not been done satisfactorily. If we get a good monsoon we may have to be provided with boats to commute in Mumbai.”
The Congress’s leader in the BMC, Pravin Chhedda, went a step further; he told The Hindu, “Mumbai city will drown in floods considering the BMC’s track record on de-silting contracts. They are claiming 40 per cent of work is done, yet a simple visit to the Rafiq Nagar nulla at Trombay will reveal that no work has commenced on it to date. Similar is the case with the Somaiya nulla at Ghatkopar. Even the work that has been done in other nulla is limited to removal of the floating material: that is a maximum of 12 inches of the top, while the nulla bed is covered with [several feet of] silt. They keep passing nulla proposals. Can they answer us as to why, if the de-silting work is on target, do SS chief Uddhav Thackeray and BJP leader Ashish Shellar have to keep visiting the BMC officials again and again on the issue?”
Pointing out that forged documents from contractors were routinely passed by the BMC’s accounts department, he said, “Any building repairs or civic contracts has a mechanism whereby the elected representatives can issue contracts, table the proposals, use various machinery; but the most important aspect of this exercise is the site visits by the councillors in all the wards to inspect works. They can’t just shift the responsibility on the civic administration and shrug off their own complicity in the contracts.”
The writer is a freelance journalist
BMC claims 40% of desilting has been completed, and the rest will be done by May-end
