After alleged financial irregularities in road contracts, the BMC may be staring at another scam, this time in the Hydraulic Engineering (HE) department. A tender issued by the civic body in September 2019 for painting water pipelines was pegged at around Rs 41 crore, a whopping 250 per cent rise from a tender issued in March 2018 for a similar job. The cost for last year's job — where the dimensions of the pipes were slightly different — was estimated at around Rs 11 crore.

The fluctuation and a 250 per cent rise in cost, within a span of 18 months, has raised eyebrows of many in civic corridors. The civic staff and a city-based activist has raised red flags over the same. As such, activist Anil Galgali has written to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner, Praveen Pardeshi.