Rs 3500 crore could have been saved if roads concretised 15 years ago, says Eknath Shinde

Amid a call by the Shiv Sena (UBT) to hold a protest against irregularities in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Maharashtra state chief minister Eknath Shinde said about Rs 3,500 crore could have been saved had the roads of Mumbai been concretised 15 years ago.

Addressing a function here, Shinde said the ruling partners of Shiv Sena and BJP have initiated a programme to make Mumbai roads not only pothole-free but also concretised in two to three years. his they could have done, he said, without naming his former leader Uddhav Thackeray, who headed the undivided Shiv Sena.

We have taken up work on 450 km of roads in the first phase costing Rs 6,000 crore and another 450 km in the second phase. The same will be replicated in Thane too, said Shinde. hiv Sena (UBT) on Tuesday announced that it will on July 1 organise a morcha outside the BMC to protest irregularities in its functioning.

On Thackeray’s criticism of splurging money in the name of organising events related to G20 and road concretisation in the financial capital, Shinde asked, Do you want to showcase to foreign delegates the slums or the best of things in Mumbai? e said spending money on such events was a necessity. Even the Sherpa of G20 Amitabh Kant and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have appreciated our presentation of the city, he said.

Shinde listed out many ongoing projects that he said will save money and time. He said the missing link on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway between Khopoli and Sinhaghad Institute is being taken up. Once complete, it will cut travel time to Pune by half an hour, he said. he 22-km-long Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link project between Sewree and Nhava Sheva will reduce the present travel time of 2 hours to just 15-20 minutes, he said.