A timely intervention of officials from drought-hit Palamu district has saved a beneficiary of PM Awas Yojna Gramin from getting the house caved in!
Sources said a village mason engaged for the construction of this house under PM Awas Yojna Gramin used very small size stones in the foundation of this house without any sand soling and a mix of sand–cement-water and had there been any laying of brick there and the walls so raised on this foundation it was bound to collapse till going up to the door level or with roof coming on the walls.
The sandless and cement less stones so haphazardly laid in the foundation would not have born the pressure of the house on its completion. Bhagmati Devi wife of Krishna Singh was allotted one unit of house under PM Awas Yojna Gramin at Goriyahee tola under Ramgarh block. She was sanctioned this house in the current year 2018 -19.
First installment to the tune of Rs 40, 000 was also credited to her bank account. It was her village mason whose flaw could have cost this woman too dearly had the officials not taken note of the findings of this newspaper the Pioneer which had visited this lady on Friday about 40 Kms off Daltonganj.
The issue of stones without sand soling and without sand cement water mix in foundation was brought to the notice of the DDC Palamu Bindu Madhav Prasad Singh who on Saturday rushed a team of officials led by BDO Ramgarh to this woman’s house site.
The DDC admitted, “The Pioneer’s finding was found all true.
There were small size stones all without sand cement and water and without sand soling in the foundations of this house under this PM Awas Yojna Gramin.
The team pressed the family of this beneficiary Bhagmati Devi to remove all those stones from foundations without any more delay. She has been asked to use sand and brick and cement in the foundation."
The DDC further said, “It is a sheer luck that this fault in construction was so discovered otherwise this house was bound to cave in." Sources said there is another twist in this housing scheme.
In rural of Palamu there comes truckload of Chhatisgarh cement. Popular opinion about this Chhatisgarh cement is that it is poor in quality.
This correspondent too saw a truck load of Chhatisgarh cement getting un loaded in jungle of Sarahuwa under this Ramgarh block on Friday wherein came a tractor with trolley and 30 to 40 bags of cement were unloaded from the truck and again loaded in the trolley of the tractor and then the tractor took another jungle route!
These bags of cement were not unloaded near any godown, shop or house of any cluster of Awas beneficiaries. It was unloaded in jungle! And this raises eye brows. When DC Palamu Shantanu Kumar Agrahari was apprised of this surreptitious trading of cement he said “ I will ask SP to alert his Ramgarh police to find out the secret of this kind of cement sale. I will also press in officials of the commercial departments to track down this case.”
The way the bags of cement were so taken off from the truck and then the tractor got off the scene smack off something dubious going on said sources.
The DC said, “We aim at quality work of Awas construction. There cannot be any compromise with quality.”