Construction of smart road likely to miss deadline

NASHIK: The

Nashik

Municipal Smart City

Development Corporation Ltd

(NMSCDCL), althought keen to ensure completion the smart road work before monsoon, is apprehensive that contractor could miss the deadline due to slow pace.


The 1.1-km road from Ashok Stambh to Modak Point is being developed as a pilot smart road. The authorities had set March 31 deadline for the same. The contractor, however, failed to complete even one patch of the road by that period.

NMSCDCL has served a notice to the contractor on April 15 for not meeting the deadline. The authorities have also decided to impose penalty on the contractor. “The penalty will be imposed depending upon the period of the delay. We will make that adjustment in his bill. The amount has not yet been decided, but the decision will be taken after the election,” said chief executive officer Prakash

Thavil

.

He said that the contractor is expected to complete the road before rainy season. The deadline to complete first phase of the road was October 2018. It has been extended till January 31. The deadline for the second phase was March31. The first phase has been completed during this period with some finishing touches remaining. Now, the officials are hoping that the second phase of the road is completed at least before monsoon.

In February, when principal secretary, planning department Sitaram Kunte, was in the city, he said that the contractor was not mobilised the way he should be. He had said that notice was being served to him for delay in completion and also asked the officials to impose fines on him.

“There are many reasons for the delay. New problems emerge ver often. Some pipelines, underground channels, old sewage lines, old water supply lines had to be taken care of while constructing the road. Many small issues like these came up and delayed the work,” Thavil said.

In addition, a British-era sewage line, unused pipelines and heavy traffic are other reasons that delayed the construction of Smart Road inordinately.

Initially, due to heavy traffic they could not bring trucks of cement during the day, and hence, they brought it during the night after the traffic reduced.