Cost of desilting doubles

The bid to weed out corruption from its de-silting operations is costing the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) dearly. The cost of the work has doubled a result of the new tender conditions put in place after the scam in operations was revealed.

While the cost of tenders is pegged at Rs140 crore just like last year, the amount of silt the contractors will have to remove has been cut by around 60 per cent. Despite the high cost, contractors have bid 50-80 per cent above the BMC estimate.

All 24 contractors booked in the scam have been barred from bidding in the new tenders. As a result, the BMC received a tepid response this time. Around eight contractors bid for only 23 of the 51 de-silting contracts that were floated while 18 tenders had no takers. The BMC had scrapped the earlier contracts following the scam.

Citing high costs and poor response, the Congress has demanded that the new tenders be re-floated. "There is a nexus between the contractors and BMC officials. That's the reason why contractors have bid so high. BMC's online portal was shut before time. Some contractors, who are under the scanner, have been allowed to participate. These tenders are skewed and should be scrapped," alleged Congress legislator Aslam Shaikh. He has also written to BMC chief Ajoy Mehta in this regard.

Officials said from now on, the civic body will pay contractors based on the weight of the silt removed from the drains instead of volume, a system that it had been following all these years. The BMC will pay contractors around Rs1,600 per tonne of silt removed. This has led to a massive cost escalation in the contracts.

"We are still going through the bids. If there are no bidders, we will re-float the tenders are per norms. The quantum of silt has been reduced and these tender are only for the coming year," said LS Vhatkar, chief engineer, Storm Water Drains (SWD).

The BMC has blacklisted 24 contractors and will register an FIRs against all of them in the coming week. The civic body's claims of being rain-ready were washed away with a heavy downpour on June 18 and 19. It had reportedly spent Rs150 crore on the preparations, but not just the low-lying areas, several other localities were water-logged. Following the floods, Mehta ordered a probe into the de-silting operations.

New contractors
Ms NA Construction, MS SNB Infrastructure, Ms Riddhi Enterprises, Ms Anas Infra, Ms Kamal Enterprise, Ms HV Construction, Ms Armstrong and Ms Magnum Construction