Revised tender enhancement issue halts Sonepat MC building project

Sonepat, April 7

The construction of hi-tech five story Sonepat Municipal Corporation (MC) office building, which is being constructed on the basis of green building concept, was halted for the past one-and-a-half-years.

Chief Engineer appointed

• The State Vigilance Bureau teams also raided the MC office 7 months ago and collected the records of the tender and launched a probe into the matter.
• The latest development into the matter is that headquarters has appointed the Chief Engineer, Faridabad, to make a report over it.

The revised proposal project file has been stuck at the Urban Local Bodies (ULB) headquarter due to objection over revised enhancement amount of the tender which is almost 90 per cent more compared to the estimated cost of the project at the beginning. As per the sources, the MC office is currently working at three separate locations in the city causing inconvenience to the people as well as MC officials and employees.

Taking a serious note of it and to smoothen the working of the MC, the BJP Government in its first regime had made a project for construction of a new building of the MC in Sector-3 where all the MC officials, mayor and councillors can sit together.

Earlier, the estimated cost of the project was Rs 43.70 crore, but it was increased after it was changed to green building concept and it reached to Rs 52 crore.

The MC had allotted the tender to a Delhi-based contractor company, which started the work in December 2018. Over Rs 52 crore given by the MC had been spent and payment was made to the construction company, but despite this, the structure was lying incomplete and the work was halted. The contractor company and MC officials sent a revised proposal of Rs 87 crore to complete the building in December 2021 to the ULB headquarter for approval, the sources added.

However, the officials at headquarters objected it, said the sources. Some MC officials were involved in connivance with the contractor company to revise the proposal with the enhancement of Rs 35 crore, the sources added.

Rajiv Jain, former Media Advisor to the Chief Minister said that during the first regime of the BJP Government, the project of MC office building was started. However, due to officials’ apathy, the project was halted.

Monika Gupta, Commissioner, MC Sonepat, said the original cost of the project was Rs 52 crore and due to the case of enhancement, it was objected by the headquarters and the project is stuck.