Complete road concretisation works in Mumbai by May 31: Shinde in meet attended by Aaditya

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday said all ongoing road concretisation works in Mumbai must be completed by May 31.

He was speaking at a meeting of MLAs from the metropolis convened by assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar to discuss these concretisation works, which elected representatives have claimed are of low quality.

It was the first time Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and Worli MLA Aaditya Thackeray took part in a meeting in the presence of Shinde, who incidentally came late.

Thackeray's Shiv Sena (UBT) and Shinde-led Shiv Sena are bitter rivals ever since the Bal Thackeray-founded party split in June 2022.

''All ongoing road concretisation works in Mumbai must be completed by May 31. Till the ongoing concretisation is not completed, no new roads will be dug up,'' Shinde said.

In the meeting, it was decided that assistant municipal commissioners will review road concretisation works in April along with representatives of firms like Mahanagar Gas and power companies, following which a completion schedule will be created.

Aaditya Thackeray sought a probe by the Mumbai police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) into the poor quality of cement concretisation of roads, his colleague and Vandre East MLA Varun Sardesai said.

MLAs complained of sub-contracts of these works being given, which was leading to poor quality, Sardesai added.

BJP MLA Atul Bhatkalkar said he highlighted lack of coordination among ward officials.

The issue of these works was raised by Bhatkalkar in the assembly last week, during which legislators slammed civic authorities for their lackadaisical approach in implementing the state government's ''pothole free'' Mumbai campaign.

Bhatkalkar had said in the House that then chief minister Eknath Shinde and current CM Devendra Fadnavis initiated cement concretisation of roads to make them pothole free but the civic machinery had not done anything.

Speaker Narwekar had said the state government should explore whether an inquiry is necessary in the ongoing cement concretisation (CC) of roads, similar to the one conducted when previous road scam reports emerged in the city.

His comments came after members of the ruling Mahayuti and opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) raised concerns over the poor quality of roads and the delays in the ongoing cement concretisation works.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)