HC pulls up BMC for shoddy road works

MUMBAI: It could not have come at a worse time for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The country’s richest municipal body, which is already under a harsh media glare, will also have to give an explanation to the Bombay High Court after the court pulled it up on Wednesday for not doing enough.

Coming down heavily on the BMC for its failure to tackle flooding of low-lying areas following heavy rains in the city, the HC on Wednesday asked the civic body to explain why action should not be taken against contractors for the bad road conditions.

The court’s query came in response to BMC’s statement that it has spent Rs 250 crore on road repairs last month in anticipation of monsoon.

Referring to this statement and yesterday’s images of potholes filled roads shown by TV channels, Justice Lodha wondered “whether all this money was going down the drain.” Hearing a public interest litigation, the HC asked the civic body to file an affidavit stating what was being contemplated against errant contractors.

The court also observed that there has been very little long-term planning to tackle heavy rain situations. The court was hearing a PIL filed last year, which sought implementation of a report on disposal of drain water during monsoon. The division bench of Justice R M Lodha and Justice S F Vajifdar also directed the BMC to put on affidavit a time-frame for implementation of this project and details of the phases in which it was going to be done.

The HC also asked the Western Railways to file an affidavit as to what measures it was taking to avoid waterlogging on railway tracks.When the civic body counsel tried told the court that it had taken steps to prevent flooding of low lying areas, Justice RM Lodha observed, “We appreciate your efforts, but perhaps you have failed to adopt long-term planning measures, which is why the situation was bad yesterday.”