Friday, July 24, 2015

Bad infra is no one's baby

Times of India: Ahmedabad: Friday, 24 July 2015.
If you are wondering, why the roads in your area barely survive for a year, why the recently laid drains have suddenly burst or why have there been water supply problems in your area frequently, blame it on Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation's (AMC) failure to refer them to vigilance committee.
It was on May 30, eight years ago that the AMC had brought out a circular that required that all civic works that cost Rs 50,000 or above before being executed were to be routed through vigilance department. However, as on today, the AMC has admitted that all projects between 2007 and 2012 were never referred to the vigilance committee despite the circular.
This was the period when a majority of JNNURM projects pertaining to BRTS, roads, urban renewal, drainage, storm water drains, and solid waste were being implemented in the city. An RTI filed by a Kalupur resident, Pankaj Bhatt, has revealed that in just one year, which was 2013, the engineering divisions of the AMC referred 1,132 projects after the finance department pointed out that there was a 2007 vigilance circular. In 2014 the engineers referred 452 projects to the vigilance department.
According to the circular, various engineering departments were to provide the details about the civic work, location of the work, cost finalized for the contractor, material used in construction activity, quality check reports while the civic works is on and other such stringent requirements. A list of at least 15 such quality checks has been instructed.
"According to the circular, it was only if the vigilance department cleared the case that the contractor was paid. But the notification has been ignored for quite sometime now. Instead the provision of pre-audit was introduced for road projects two years ago. But that too has been discontinued," said a senior AMC official.
"The vigilance circular was only honored when the finance department sought accountability from various engineering divisions," added the official.