Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde inspected pending repair work on the Mumbai-Goa highway in Raigad district on Monday ahead of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival.
Earlier, Ramdas Kadam, a politician from Eknath Shinde’s faction in the Shiv Sena, had demanded the resignation of Maharashtra Public Works Minister and BJP leader Ravindra Chavan, calling him a “useless minister” due to the poor condition of the highway.
While the highway section from Ratnagiri to Goa is completed and operational, some sections in Raigad are yet to be constructed.
During the review, the Prime Minister met with representatives of the National Highways Authority of India and the PWD, who explained to him the work being done there.
After completing the review, Chief Minister Shinde said Ganesh Chaturthi had directed the authorities to complete the patching work.
“We have used four types of advanced technology to repair the potholes on the highway. This will minimize the inconvenience to the people travelling to their villages in the coastal districts for Ganesh Chaturthi,” he said.
“Union Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari showed keen interest in the highway and gave loans to contractors, but some of them ignored the work and due to their lethargy, we have to face this precarious situation,” the chief minister was quoted as saying by a news agency. PTI As I said.
Action would be taken against contractors who had built substandard roads, he added.
Members of the Jan Akrosh Andolan Konkan Samiti, who met the Chief Minister on Monday, urged him to convene a meeting of all agencies to avoid lack of coordination and speed up the work.
Originally scheduled for completion in 2012, the project was delayed for nearly 14 years for a variety of reasons, including problems with land acquisition, environmental permits and financing constraints, and is now scheduled for completion by December 2024.
In particular, the delay in the project resulted in significant cost overruns, increasing the project cost from Rs 400 crore to Rs 15,566 crore.
The Bombay High Court has set a deadline of December 31 this year for the completion of the Mumbai-Goa motorway project. The court warned that any deviation from this schedule would be considered serious and could amount to contempt.
