tainted contractor

BMC blacklist Ms RPS Infraprojects

road repairs scam

Speco Infrastructure

BMC demolishes 20 footpath encroachments in Mumbai's Juhu area From Shatrughan Sinha to Hrithik Roshan no one was spared as BMC demolishes 20 encroachments in Mumbai's Juhu area

In 2016, the BMC had filed an FIR against Ms RPS Infraprojects and its owners

Mumbai: BMC loses prime land again, this time 1 lakh sq ft HC allows owners to develop two parcels of land in Borivali; SC in July rejected BMC plea to acquire 13,000-sq mt plot in Jogeshwari.

The BMC’s alleged ‘family welfare programme’ continues unabated. Notwithstanding a spate of complaints against granting civic contracts to family members of blacklisted contractors, the BMC has yet again shortlisted a company owned by the wife of afor a Rs 120-crore bridge project on SV Road in Borivali West.Not only did thein a Rs 350-crorein 2016, it also filed an FIR against the firm and its two directors Nitin Rajmal Shah and Ketan Rajmal Shah, who had then sought anticipatory bail in the case. Interestingly, Ketan Shah’s wife Sejal’s firm Mshas been shortlisted for the SV Road bridge contract; Sejal Shah has 90 per cent stake in Ms Speco Infrastructure, which has bid for the bridge work in a joint venture with Ms Michigan Engineers Pvt Ltd.After pressure from Opposition leaders and a series of reports by Mirror, the BMC has been barring firms owned by family members of blacklisted contractors from civic contracts. But contractors have found a devious way of circumventing the rules – they make their wives or mothers directors in other companies, which bid for new contracts. According to sources, the BMC’s legal department is allegedly hand-in-glove with the contractors. In fact, it was after a go-ahead from the BMC’s law department that Additional Municipal Commissioner Vijay Singhal, head of the BMC’s bridges and roads department, approved Speco’s bid.Over the past few months, even the BMC’s Solid Waste Management department, also led by Singhal, has been under fire for accommodating ostracised contractors. Earlier this year, Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta had scrapped a tender worth Rs 260 crore for a garbage transport contract which was on the verge of going to Ms Global Waste Management Cell Pvt Ltd. Owned by a blacklisted contractor’s wife, it was an offshoot of two firms – Ms Shree Kaviraj Infratech Pvt Ltd and Ms Vishwashakti Construction – that had been blacklisted for seven years for a desilting scam.Until Mehta stepped in, the BMC’s legal department had claimed that spouses of blacklisted contractors cannot be barred from bidding, or being shortlisted, as owners of new firms.“The civic body has given up its fight against blacklisted contractors and has become free for all. How can it shortlist a company owned by the wife of a contractor against whom an FIR was filed for duping the agency? The BMC must come out with adefinite and clear policy about firms with links to blacklisted contractors,” said Congress corporator Ravi Raja, opposition leader in the BMC. Raja further alleged that after the SWM department, the big comeback of tainted contractors is now continuing in the roads and bridges department as well.According to insiders, the BMC’s law department, in fact, is the real culprit. “The BMC must reform the law department, which misled the BMC even in the Jogeshwari land case. It seems the law department works for contractors and private parties’ interests and not for the BMC. The civic body needs to have zero tolerance policy for blacklisted contractors,” said Samajwadi Party Rais Shaikh.Singhal said he would examine the issue. “We will go through the records again. We will keep all tainted contractors out and see the law department’s opinion on the issue,” Singhal said. Nitin Shah of RPS Infraprojects refused to comment.