Navi Mumbai: Three days after the state chief minister Eknath Shinde directed the Raigad police to file criminal charges against the previous contractors for shoddy work of the highway, Raigad police has filed a case on Thursday. The contractor has been booked for endangering public life by doing a shoddy work. The CM on Monday was reviewing the work pending on the highway ahead of Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations.
The contractor assigned with the road widening work of Mumbai Goa highway, has been charged with culpable homicide. The case was registered for the substandard quality of road widening and repair work done between Indapur to Wadpale in Mangaon, a total stretch of 26.7 kms.
“Due to the shoddy work of Chetak Enterprises on Mumbai-Goa State highway, we booked the contractors as per the complaint registered by National highway authority and also arrested one of them,” Raigad Superintendent of Police Somnath Gharge said.
A complaint was lodged by the National highway authority with Mangoan police station under section 105- culpable homicide, 125 (A) (B) and 3(5) of Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita against the Director Hukimichand Jain, General manager Avdesh Kumar Singh and Project Engineer Sujit Sadanand Kawale. SP Gharge confirmed that Kawale has been arrested.
State government on 1 May 2017 had entered into a joint contract with Chetak enterprises and APCO infrastructure limited to widen the national highway. The multi crore project finally commenced on 18 December 2017 and was supposed to be completed by the contractor within a period of two years. According to the police, even after the expiry of the said period, the contractor was given ample extensions to finish the work. As per the complainant, instead of the expected 10% work to be completed every month the contractor was found to have done only 4.6 % of work. Due to this the contractor was served with the show cause notices by the Highway authority, thrice.
With over 170 motor accidents registered since the year 2020, and a total of 97 persons losing their lives and 208 commuters suffering with minor and major injuries, the quality of work undertaken had become a raging issue among various political parties.
Work like laying of thermoplastic paints (white stripes), placing of cat eye blinkers, signboards informing the motorists of the speed limits or any diversion, which had to be done by the contractor has not been completed by them, said the complaint, police confirmed.
