Revenue worth crores of rupees could have been saved by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee if it had assigned the construction activities in its campus to the departments like Central Public Works Department (CPWD), Railway Engineering Department or any government agency which do not levy departmental charges.
The IIT Roorkee abruptly ended its association with the Central Government's premier construction agency CPWD on December 23, 2008 and from then onwards, an entire division of the department has remained virtually bereft of work. The CPWD does not levy any departmental charge on the construction activity which is assigned to it by any government agency. These departmental charges depending upon the agency are anything between 8-12 per cent of the estimated cost of the project.
Sources revealed that IIT Roorkee has assigned the task of its majority of construction activities to the National Building Construction Company (NBCC) from 2009 and this agency levies departmental charges. They further informed that the construction activities worth Rs 300-325 Crores kept taking place in IIT Roorkee since 2009. A back of the envelop calculation,, considering a modest 10 per departmental charge, shows that revenues worth Rs 30- 32 Crores could have been saved under the head of departmental charges by the premier institute. One employee of CPWD, on condition of anonymity, said the entire issue, reeking of corruption, should be probed. The institute has constructed lecture halls, multi activity centre, girls hostel building, Bio Technology building and some staff quarters in the past four years. When contacted over phone, the Director of IIT Roorkee Prof Pradipta Banerji curtly said, "You should not talk to me directly on the issue. You should call instead the estate committee in charge for this". This correspondent tried to contact Estates Committee Chairman Prof Mahendra Singh but failed.
The division II of CPWD with 20 staff members which was dependent on IIT Roorkee had to shift the division office from Roorkee to Dehradun as work from the institute dried. This state of things keeps continuing for the past four years, adding to their woes. The expenditure on salary alone of this division is estimated to be around Rs 1 crore per year. The Executive Engineer (Ex En) and in charge of this division of CPWD, GS Bisht, however, refused to comment on the issue. But the eagerness of CPWD to impress the IIT Roorkee can be discerned by the number of meetings and letters arranged and sent form their end. The Pioneer is in possession of a letter written by Chief Engineer NZ-IV, CPWD, Dehradun S C Bhardwaj to IIT Roorkee in which he made an elaborate plea for association of CPWD and IIT Roorkee. In the letter, he highlighted that the IIT would save thedepartmental charges if it assigns the works to CPWD.