In an alleged incident of corruption, the State Public Works Department officials in collusion with the forest department officials and a private contractor allegedly constructed a road of substandard quality that too without the requisite permissions and claimed around Rs2 crore extra than the contractual amount.
Advocate and RTI activist, DK Soni on Saturday held a Press conference for ‘exposing’ the scam in a road construction work carried out in Semarsot Wildlife Sanctuary (reserved forest area) in Ramanujganj under Balrampur district.“The PWD, in its budget for fiscal year 2007-08, sanctioned the work of constructing a 6 km road between Pasta village and Khatwabardar village with an estimate amount Rs3.22 crore. The work order was issued to Harsh Construction (Ambikapur) on February 5, 2008 while PWD SDO (Ramanujganj) issued the work completion certification on December 28, 2012” informed Soni.
He added that only a sub-engineer in PWD, signed on estimate papers of the work while there was no sign of SDO and the executive engineer on the documents.Soni alleged that though the area is identified as reserved forest area (Semarsot Wildlife Sanctuary), no permission was taken from the forest department, the environment department or the state government for constructing the road.“As per the work order, estimate cost of the work was decided as Rs3.22 crore while PWD released Rs5.05 crore to the construction company against the work, which about Rs1.83 crore extra while no additional work, then what was mentioned in the work order, was carried out at the site” he claimed.
Besides, substandard materials were used in construction of the road and culvert. Instead of developing a 15 cm base of ‘muram’, the contractor used ‘red soil’ and received the payment for it. When measured, the road was developed 100 meter less than the assigned work of 6 km, alleged Soni.“As per the contact norms, the contractor has to carry out maintenance of the road for next three years from the day of issuing the work completion certificate i.e. December 12, 2012. However, as no maintenance was carried out by the contractor, the road’s condition is quickly deteriorating” claimed the advocate.
Soni said that as corruption in the said work with collusion of PWD officials, the forest department officials and the contractor has surfaced, a high-level probe in the matter should be carried out by the investing agencies. He also wrote to the Prime Minister, the union PWD minister, the union forest and environment minister, Chhattisgarh chief minister, the state PWD minister and the state chief secretary for their intervention in the matter.
“We are going to lodge a complaint with the lokayukta special police establishment (SPE) and will also approach to the court for taking appropriate action against the corrupt government officials and the contractor, if needed” said Soni.