Survey shines light on delays in key infra projects
Mumbai: The Economic Survey of Maharashtra, tabled by the state government on Wednesday has shone light on several key infrastructure projects, which will overshoot their deadline compounding problems being faced by residents of the city
Mumbai: The Economic Survey of Maharashtra, tabled by the state government on Wednesday has shone light on several key infrastructure projects, which will overshoot their deadline compounding problems being faced by residents of the city.
The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Limited (MSRDC) is lagging behind in several projects and Versova Bandra Sealink will be completed in 2025-26. It was delayed due to financial problems of the contractor. The missing link of Mumbai Pune Expressway will be completed by 2024. The work on Thane Ghodbunder Elevated Road has not yet been started. The third bridge on Vashi creek will be completed in 2024 and the Versova-Virar Sealink will be ready only by 2030.
The Mumbai Coastal Road Project, with eight lanes and of length 10.58 km from Princess Street flyover to the Worli-end of the Bandra Worli Sea Link with three interchanges, is undertaken by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The survey says that about 70% work of this mega project is completed and the expenditure incurred so far has been ₹6,862 crore. The project will be completed by December 2023.
The state run, Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) has not done well in terms of generating new housing stock. They have constructed 6,935 houses for economically weaker sections, 984 for lower income groups, 659 for MIG and only 14 for higher income groups.
In the areas covered by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), most projects of metro will end by 2026. They have been hit mostly due to COVID. In many war room meetings of the CM, a lot of stress is laid on completion of projects.
The survey also talks about the number of vehicles. The state has shown an increase of 5.8% in the number of vehicles over the previous year and the total number of vehicles in the state is 4.33 crore (134 vehicles per km road length) on January 1, 2022 as against as against 4.09 crore (128 vehicles per km road length) on January 1, 2022..
Of the total registered vehicles in the State, about 6.2% vehicles were registered in Mumbai.
The number of Electric Vehicles registered in the State up to December, 2022 is 1,92,997. There was initial reluctance in the minds of people about purchasing of EVs. However, that appears to be changing.
There is significant improvement in air traffic after Covid. During 2021-22, the passenger traffic from domestic and international airports in the State was 2.46crore and 32.12 lakh respectively, whereas the corresponding figures for 2020-21 were 1.34 crore and 12.23 lakh respectively. This shows that the travel has picked up in the post-Covid era.
During 2021-22, domestic and international cargo handled by airports in the state was 2.51 lakh metric tonnes and 5.57 lakh metric tonnes respectively. The corresponding figures for 2020-21 were 1.87 lakh metric tonnes and 4.41 lakh metric tonnes respectively.
The survey has also talked of E waste, a major issue in the cities. It says that during 2021-22, the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board has authorised 136 industries having environment friendly technology with total capacity of 1,17,392 MT per year for dismantling and recycling of e-waste. During 2021-22 in all 18,559 metric tonnes e-waste was dismantled/recycled in the State, as against 14,506 metric tonnes during 2020-21.
About bio waste, the MPCB has been issuing authorisation to health care establishments for disposal of bio-medical waste. During 2021, in all 64,989 health care establishments were under the purview of MPCB in the State.
During 2021, about 80.31 metric tonnes bio-medical waste per day was generated. Of which 80.1 metric tonnes bio-medical waste was treated per day in 30 common bio-medical waste treatment and disposal facility centres (29 operating on incineration basis and one on deep burial basis) and 0.21 metric tonnes of bio-medical waste was treated by 259 health care facilities by captive bio-medical waste treatment and disposal method.
For plastic waste, there are 510 material recovery facility centres in 374 urban local bodies of the state where materials like plastic, paper, iron, digital equipments are separated through dry waste and sent to recycling process. At the end of August 2022, plastic recycling industries in the State were 234 with a total capacity of 5.97 lakh metric tonnes per year.
During 2021-22, in all 4.90 lakh establishments were inspected, 43.39 metric tonnes banned plastic was seized and penalty of ₹1.75 crore was recovered from 15,772 establishments for use of banned plastic / thermocol (polystyrene) products.