MMRDA favours Road Contractor with Rs 18.90 Crore Noise Barrier Orders without any Noise

At a time when the Government is placing priority on transparency, in a blatant case of waste of public money, it has come to light in a RTI query filed by Anil Galgali with MMRDA favouring a Road Contractor J Kumar with an Rs 18.90 Crore order for a specialized work (providing of noise barriers).   Based on an application filed by RTI activist Anil Galgali and subsequent documents, it has come to light that MMRDA, instead of following laid down Government procedures and tendering the work, chose to directly award the work to a road contactor as an extra item. Neither was the work tendered nor was any negotiations carried out to execute this specialized and sensitive work. Work was awarded unilaterally to the road contractor at highly inflated rates as recommended by CRRI for a whooping Rs 18.90 Crores.CRRI (Central Road Research Agency) New Delhi,a Government agency in noise mitigation was awarded this work of noise mapping and mitigation.   Earlier works for providing noise barriers include Bandra Kurla Link Road (Rs. 8.68 Crores), JVLR near IIT campus (Rs. 4.11 Crores), APLR on Eastern Freeway (Rs. 76.50 lacs) and SCLR (Rs.5.14 Crores) were tendered by MMRDA.However in the present case of the Ambedkar road flyovers, MMRDA completely ignored the fact that such works of nearly Rs 18.90 Crores should be properly tendered to obtain realistic market prices and issue work order to installation of Noise Barriers at Sion Hospital, King's Circle- Tulpule Chowk and Hindmata Flyover. Earlier MMRDA favor same Contractor J Kumar in Dahisar Railway Over bridge Noise Barrier work of Rs 5.74 Crores without Tender.Market sources reveal that while the rates of the noise barriers are around Rs. 9,500 to Rs 10,500 per square meter,MMRDA has awarded work to the contractor at Rs. 12,500 per square meter. (Inflated rates as recommended by the Consultant CRRI.) Anil Galgali Said that if the work had been tendered, the agency could have easily achieved substantial savings of nearly Rs. 4 to 5 Crores. Inside information reveal a prevalent scrupulous practice followed by the agency to award extra items anytime bypassing tender procedures. It is precisely this route that MMRDA adopted to award this work to the road contractor for a value of RS 18.90 Crores as an extra item in spite of the flyover being opened to traffic more than 2 years back.  RTI Activist Anil Galgali has taken up this abuse of public money with the Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis, Chief Secretary Swadhin Kshtriya and MMRDA Metropolitan Commissioner UPS Madan. Galgali urged to cancel the work order immediately and follow the Tender Process. Last Sunday Contractor J Kumar firms owner Jagdish Gupta and Kamal Gupta share dias with Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis at Kherwadi flyover opening function so that Mr Madan not dare to take action on Contractor J Kumar's company, this was inner discussion in MMRDA headquarter.