Last Update: January 14, 2023, 00:01 IST
If the work is bid for Rs 100, it will be for Rs 80, including the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Thackeray alleged. (Image: ANI)
Addressing a press conference, Thackeray said new contracts worth over Rs 6,000 crore have been issued to pave 400 km of roads in the city.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and former Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray on Friday alleged that tenders for concreting of roads in Mumbai were floated at a higher cost for the benefit of contractors and should be cancelled.
Addressing a press conference, Thackeray said new contracts worth over Rs 6,000 crore have been issued to pave 400 km of roads in the city.
“Whatever is the estimated price till March 2022, all contractors will bid 20 per cent less than the estimated price,” the Shiv Sena leader said.
He alleged that if the work is bid for Rs 100, it will be done with Rs 80, including Goods and Services Tax (GST).
In November 2022, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation re-floated tenders worth Rs 6,079 crore for the concretization of 400 km of roads in the metropolis.
The tenders were floated after earlier tenders worth Rs 5,806 crore were canceled due to poor response, the civic body had said at the time.
The former minister claimed that when a tender of Rs 5,000 crore was floated in August 2022, no one responded to it. Therefore, in November-December last year, the civic body changed the schedule of rates, which includes the rise and fall of prices.
The cost increased by 20 percent, and so did the contractors’ profit, with them dubbing the move a “systematic robbery” of Mumbaikars.
“Why didn’t BMC negotiate it (with the contractors)? When there is a general body, mayor or standing committee which has empowered the administrator to do so (to issue such contracts)?” Thackeray said.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)