mumbai

Updated: Feb 14, 2018 09:24 IST

The 187 civic engineers, named for the shoddy repairs of 200 roads across the city in the second phase of the road scam inquiry, are most likely to face action -- dismissal from service, stoppage of increment and promotion -- similar to the 100 engineers found guilty in the first phase of the probe.

The probe into the second phase involved inspection of 200 roads built at a cost of around Rs1,700 crore. “Engineers who deliberately adopted a negligent approach and helped contractors claim money from the BMC after doing shoddy work will face strong action,” said a civic official.

The inquiry officer submitted his report to civic chief Ajoy Mehta last week. Mehta has asked the panel to resubmit the report with the quantum of punishment to be awarded. “In its report, the inquiry committee did not define the punishment to be given to indicted officials. The report merely listed out their role,” said Mehta. “In addition to the quantum of punishment, I have also asked the committee to tabulate the involvement of the officers in comparison to the first phase inquiry. Is the negligence or the involvement higher than those officers involved earlier?”

The inquiry officer has been asked to categorise the engineers -- those who had a negligible role, those who played a bigger role, those who deliberately adopted a negligence approach in favour of contractors.

The final report is expected to be submitted to mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar next week. After the first inquiry report, the BMC dismissed four engineers, cut the increments of 81 and got 11 of them to pay Rs10,000 fine for giving the city shoddy roads over the past few years.

Two senior officials — former chief engineer roads Ashok Pawar and former chief engineer vigilance Uday Murudkar — were among those arrested.

The road scam came to light in 2015, when Mehta, following a letter by then mayor Snehal Ambekar, appointed a committee led by then additional municipal commissioner Sanjay Deshmukh to probe the roads repaired in the previous three years.