Mumbai: BMC has suspended a sub-engineer and imposed fines of Rs 50 lakh on a road contractor and Rs 25 lakh on a quality monitoring agency after finding that a dry lean concrete mix used in concretisation work in H-West ward was of substandard quality. The contractor has been told to re-execute the work.
According to BMC officials, additional municipal commissioner (projects) Abhijit Bangar undertook a surprise visit to 34th Road in Khar on April 7. While inspecting the dry lean concrete, which forms a sub-base layer during concretisation, he found deficiencies in grading, mix design and compaction. The required field dry density test during compaction was not conducted as per technical specifications and the surface of the layer was found to be undulating, said officials. They also pointed out the contractor’s staffers misled the inspection team about the curing period for the dry lean concrete, by claiming that seven days had passed since it was laid. However, the contractor later said in a written statement that it had been laid for only three days.

“Dry lean concrete is a mix of cement and aggregates, and during the inspection, we found that they used aggregates of 60-70mm size, when it should have been less than 20mm. The layer should have been firm, but it came apart when pulled by hand. This meant there was some kind of compromise or negligence while carrying out the work. Undulation up to 5mm is permitted, but this was beyond that and was visible to the naked eye,” said an official.
Show-cause notices were served to BMC sub-engineer Santosh Patil, road contractor AIC Infrastructure, and a quality monitoring agency for negligence and oversight, and an explanation was sought. However, the explanation provided by the civic official and the agencies was found to be unsatisfactory.
Last month, BMC had fined two road contractors Rs 20 lakh each and cancelled the registration of two ready-mix concrete (RMC) plants over quality issues. The RMC plants were also barred from supplying concrete for six months. The action followed a surprise inspection of road works on March 20 and April 1. A contractor who caused inexcusable delays in concretising roads in Aarey Colony was barred from participating in any tender process across BMC departments for two years and fined Rs 5 lakh.
BMC chief Bhushan Gagrani has warned that negligence and defects in road concretisation works will not be tolerated, and wherever faults are found, strict action will be taken against those responsible.
The civic body has set a deadline of May 31 for completion of ongoing cement concretisation works and engineers have been instructed to be present at work sites and conduct surprise checks.