Repairing works have been started on the 16 bridges whose proposal got sanctioned by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) amid election Modal Code of Conduct citing it urgent and important. But, the BMC is yet to complete the tender procedure to appoint a new auditor to inspect south Mumbai bridges.
The BMC had completed an audit report of these bridges and the process of approving proposals was going on at a snail's pace before the Himalaya Bridge collapse incident on March 14, in which seven people died and more than 31 got injured. Following the incident, BMC had started work on a war footing.
The administration had tabled the proposal with the estimated cost of Rs 13.40 crores, which was kept aside by the standing committee on March 27 and later approved on April 4 during the MCC. But the administration sent a request to the election commission and awarded work order to contractors. "It is important work and we can't wait further as monsoon will start and the bridges need an urgent repair," said an officer from the bridges department.
The work has been started but many of engineers and workers of BMC are on election duty and there are hardly few to inspect the work. "The work will start in full speed once the employees joined after an election duty," the officer added.
The list of bridges include Grant road railway bridge, Opera house bridge, French bridge, Haji Ali subway, Diana bridge, Princes-street foot over bridge(FOB), Churchgate north and south subway, CST subway, Gloria church flyover, Sitaram Selam Y bridge flyover, Eastern freeway, S.V.P road bridge, YM flyover, Sir P D'melo FOB, Dockyard road FOB. The civic body has already awarded a contract to repair more than 40 bridges across the city.
Though the work of repair has started, the BMC is yet to finalize the auditor for south Mumbai bridges. "There is a delay in opening tenders but we will manage to proceed in the next week. The proposal will go for approval by the May end," said an officer.
DD Desai Consultant had audited 82 bridges including Himalaya Bridge. The BMC directed the other two firms to re-audit the bridges in suburban again and floated a new tender to appoint a new auditor for South Mumbai as the civic body blacklisted DD Desai Consultant. The audit of all 344 bridges in the city was ordered after the collapse of a portion of Gokhale Bridge in Andheri on July 3, 2018.
The structural report marked 176 bridges for minor repairs, 47 for major repairs and reconstruction of 14 bridges, of which seven had already been demolished.
