| Use full budget for roads | ||
| BMC told to take permissions in advance, hire engineers to oversee road repairs |
The Bombay High Court on Thursday ordered the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to utilise its entire budget for road maintenance and development and to take the necessary permissions well in advance so that the amount can be fully utilised by March 2007.
The division bench of Justices R M Lodha and N H Patil asked why the previous budgetory allocation had not been utilised fully and directed the BMC to fill the posts of junior engineers in all the 24 wards for supervising road maintenance work.
The BMC informed the court that it had not used the whole budget as it had to reassess the work it had done, based on which it could allocate money for the next year.
Hearing a public interest litigation filed by Dr Sandeep Rane, the court gave the BMC’s standing technical advisory committee three weeks to place necessary notes about the budget.
The BMC had filed a detailed affidavit explaining the exact expenses incurred on road repairs and had also listed details on the work completed, what was pending etc.
The BMC informed the court that it has allocated Rs 600 crore for road repairs and maintenance for 2006-07, including the Rs 72 crore left from 2005-06, and that 21 junior engineers had been appointed. The court gave the BMC three weeks to fill the three remaining posts.
The division bench also directed the corporation to work out some solution and coordinate with agencies that dig up roads for various purposes. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority and the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation were also directed to file an affidavit about the status of roads under their jurisdiction in six weeks.
In March 2005, the court had directed the BMC to implement its Standing Committee recommendations of December 2004, that is, to increase staff for maintenance of roads, to hire one junior engineer for every ward and to hire technical consultants.
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