‘Irregularities’ in road works: CVO asks civic body SEs to bring records

Harshraj Singh

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, September 9

Following a complaint regarding alleged irregularities in the maintenance of city roads works under the Ludhiana MC, the Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) at the Department of Local Government Punjab has ordered the superintending engineers of all four zones of the MC Ludhiana to appear along with records at his office on September 15.

Earlier, information obtained under RTI had revealed that the MC has spent around Rs 212 crore on just maintenance of roads in the last five years. However, a number of city roads have still flooded with potholes.

According to the information, Rs 55.38 crore were spent during 2015-16, Rs 79.30 crore in 2016-17, Rs 27.96 crore in 2017-18, Rs 22.11 crore during 2018-19 and Rs 27.50 crore in 2019-20 for the maintenance of roads in the city. Besides, an amount of Rs 176 crore was spent on new road works during these five years as per the information.

RTI activist Rohit Sabharwal had complained to the Chief Vigilance Officer, demanding a probe into the matter. He had alleged that there could be a scam as the large amount has been drained out from the public exchequer from 2015-16 to 2019-20 but the condition of several roads was still poor.

The complainant had also alleged that the B&R branch had not maintained the record properly. “There is no proper record available that where these Rs 212 crore were spent. It is not clear that how many roads were maintained by spending this huge amount”, the complainant alleged.

After receiving the complaint, the director of the Department of Local Government had written to MC in February 2021 to send a report along with the record within 10 days in this regard but the MC had failed to follow the orders. The department had then sent reminders to the MC too but the CVO office had not received any reply to date, according to the CVO office.

Now, the Chief Vigilance Officer has asked the MC Commissioner to instruct the Superintending Engineers of all four zones to make sure their presence along with the proper record (including tender documents, estimates, measurement books, etc.) regarding the amount spent on construction and maintenance of roads as per the complaint at the CVO office on September 15.

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