The State Government, drawing flak for the controversial tenure of former Works Secretary Nalini Kanta Pradhan, in a bid to implement the principles of 5T and Mo Sarkar, had appointed an IAS officer as the Secretary of Works Department.
Though having the reputation of an efficient officer, incumbent Works Secretary Kishan Kumar has failed to streamline the activities of the department, which is known to be the mother department of engineers.
And it is no surprise that 5T and Mo Sarkar has fallen flat and the department is now like a rudderless ship. Of late, the department has become a hot bed of corruption and tender fixing is rampant.
Due to the nexus of some unscrupulous officers, contractors and powerful MLAs percentage culture has gripped the department.
A glaring example is the landing of crorepati Senior Clerk of the Roads and Buildings Department in the Vigilance net. The accused according to the Vigilance has disproportionate assets of more than Rs 5 crore.
To make matters worse the Secretary has scrutinsed the activities of only three districts Cuttack, Khordha , Puri instead of the whole State. So, many proposed major projects have failed to take off due to the land acquisition and other issues.
Particularly the construction of roads has been affected and quality has been given the go-by. Taking advantage of the Secretary’s lack of technical expertise, false bills are being prepared and crores of rupees are allegedly siphoned off by the Engineer-in Chief, Chief Engineer and other divisional officials.
The Engineers’ Service association had demanded two Engineer- in Chief and one Chief Engineer post, two Superintendent Engineer level 1 and level, 30 Executive Engineer, 99 Deputy Executive Engineer posts to be filled up.
But though the Chief Secretary had directed for DPCs to be conducted every year by December 31, he directions are being flouted.But instead former officials are being reappointed, due to which the promotional avenues of the junior officers are being affected.
Recently though a Chief Engineer was promoted to the Engineer-in Chief post he is still continuing in his earlier post. There is deep resentment due to this among the engineers for which they have no motivation to work dedicatedly.
There is no in-house designing, quality monitoring, field survey or producing Detailed Project Reports (DPRs). Instead these are outsourcd and private consulting agencies are being roped in and crores of rupees of public funds are being wasted.
Big contracts are not being awarded to special class contractors instead the contracts are being split to favour ineligible, illiterate contractors having political connections. It is demanded that to maintain transparency e-tendering of contractors should be done like the Water Resources Department.
Some officials having contacts with the local MLAs of Bhubaneswar have managed to stay in their posts for years.
In an example, the Executive Engineer of Division -IV is beating the drum that he is a close confidante of the Secretary.