AMC puts additional road proposal on the back burner

AMC’s standing committee has put the proposal of allotting additional road work on hold after the Congress opposed it. The proposal sought permission to allow the contractor to carry out additional work at the rate quoted in tenders for road resurfacing work in Ranip, Kali and Chandlodia wards of new west zone.

“The original estimated cost was around Rs8.28 crore, while the price quoted in the tender was Rs6.41 crore. However, with payment of an additional amount of Rs2.77 crore, the total cost has reached to Rs9.19 crore, exceeding the original estimate. Still, the ruling party wanted to give an additional 22% work to the same contractor, which was quite surprising”, said Hasankhan Pathan, Congress member of the standing committee.

Moreover, the cost of setting up the sports complex in Memco area has trebled in five years. The first tender was invited in 2005. The original amount of the tender was around Rs5.7 crore. However, Rs22 crore has already been spent and the work is still in progress. The cost is also expected to go up.

The standing committee also passed a proposal for setting up fire safety system in the sports complex although the rates quoted were 13% higher than the estimate. It was quite surprising that the Congress did not oppose the proposal. Moreover, it also missed out the opportunity to corner the ruling party on issue of lack of fire safety systems in AMC-run hospitals even after serious accidents taking place.