Can all roads in Mumbai be brought under BMC? Bombay High Court

The Bombay High Court on Friday asked the Urban Development Department (UDD) of Maharashtra whether it can bring all roads in the city of Mumbai within the jurisdiction of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for their maintenance and upkeep..A bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice MS Karnik was informed by BMC Commissioner Iqbal Chahal that the issue with maintenance of roads in Mumbai was that there were multiple planning authorities involved."Besides BMC there are 15 other agencies that own roads, and they do not own more than 500 kms in Mumbai. But BMC is not supposed to look after these roads," Chahal contended.He apprised the Court of his request to the State to direct the other authorities to take action to improve road conditions. Further, he said that had also official sought permission from the Chief Secretary of Maharashtra to make BMC the planning authority of entire city and extended suburbs. To this, the Bench asked whether this proposal was limited to roads alone, but Chahal clarified that the request was to make BMC the planning authority as well.The Bench then asked Chief government pleader PP Kakade if the Court could pass an order asking the State of Maharashtra to consider bringing all roads within the jurisdiction of BMC. "Can we ask the Urban Development Department consider this proposal to bring all roads within the jurisdiction of BMC in parts.. if the other agencies are not maintaining the roads properly?" CJ Datta asked. Kakade replied in affirmative to this. .The Bench had during the previous hearing asked the Commissioner to conduct a survey of the 20 worst roads in Mumbai Metropolitan region and inform the Court of a roadmap on the timeline required to repair the same.Along with the list of bad roads, Chahal stated that BMC will carry out complete concretization of the roads within their jurisdiction. "Out of the 2050 kilometers (kms) which are part of BMC jurisdiction, 990 kms was already concretised, for 265 kms work order has been given, for 397 kms work order are in process and for 398 kms the process will begin next year," Chahal stated. He further pointed out that 125 kms of the bad roads in Mumbai will have a carpet like black top (asphalt road) within 3 months.