MUMBAI: Opposition parties on Thursday demanded an SIT probe into MSRDC tenders worth Rs 90,000 crore, allegedly awarded at much above the actually estimated tendered costs.

UBT Sena leader Anil Parab, while speaking over law & order issues in the state legislative council, said MSRDC, the state’s road infrastructure arm, recently awarded new six-lane highway construction works for Virar-Alibaug, Nagpur-Chandrapur, Jalna-Nagpur, and Pune ring road projects at almost 30 to 40% higher than the tendered cost.

“This looks like an election fund which will be received in the form of kickbacks soon after releasing the advance to the contractors,” alleged Parab, pointing out that assembly elections were around the corner.

Parab said in the Alibaug-Virar corridor project the estimated tendered cost was around Rs 20,000 crore, but the actual price at which it has been awarded to various contractors was over Rs 26,000 crore.

Similarly, the cost of the Nagpur-Gondia-Chandrapur extension of Samruddhi Mahamarg was pegged at over Rs 19,000 crore, but eventually, that too was awarded at a cost of over Rs 25,000 crore, Parab pointed out.

The Pune ring road project is no exception to this trend, said Parab, pointing out that the actual awarded cost of the project was over Rs 22,000 crore against the projected tender cost of over Rs 16,000 crore. Even in the case of the Jalna-Nagpur extension of Samruddhi, the actual tendered cost is Rs 15,500 crore against an Rs 11,400 crore estimated cost, he said.

“Against the Rs 86 crore per kilometer cost of building such a highway incurred by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) itself, how can our projects be awarded at an inflated cost of Rs 155 to Rs 286 crore per kilometre rate?” he asked, demanding an SIT probe into technical as well as financial aspects involved in these projects.

According to Parab, the government officials who were involved in these tendering processes should also be interrogated, as according to him, there have been cases of senior officials amassing wealth in the name of their relatives while implementing cost-intensive infrastructure projects.