Ludhiana Improvement Trust awards work worth Rs 3 cr to contractor facing probe

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, October 3

Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) is again in the news for all the wrong reasons. Remaining true to a common belief that senior officials of the Trust are showering favours on certain ‘select’ contractors, a work for laying interlocking tiles worth approximately Rs 3 crore has been awarded to a ‘tainted’ contractor who is already facing probe for submission of wrong documents about turnover of the past five years and works executed by his firm.

As if this was not enough, the work awarded to the contractor for laying interlocking tiles on Rahon Road, falling in the Ludhiana East Assembly segment, has commenced and was inaugurated with fanfare by Congress legislator Sanjay Talwar even before the formal work order had been issued to the contractor.

Highly placed sources in the LIT revealed that out of three e-bids received for the work in question, two were rejected on the basis of not fulfilling conditions of turnover and bid capacity. “However, the successful bidder for the work was already facing a probe for filing bogus figures of turnover and executed works in the Municipal Corporation.

“In this regard, yet another complaint has also been filed by Agyapal Singh Guliani against the same contractor with the Principal Secretary, Local Government, Punjab, that the said contractor had shown different figures of turnover in documents submitted with the MC and the LIT for different works. List of executed works submitted by the contractor was also inflated and fudged,” the sources said.

LIT officials confirmed that the work order for laying interlocking tiles on Rahon Road was yet to be issued to the contractor. When asked as to how the work could commence without a formal work order, officials said they would check the site and then revert back.

Earlier, a city-based social activist, Ramesh Nayyar, had alleged in a complaint that certain contractors were submitting bogus/inflated turnover certificates for the past five years in complicity with MC and LIT officials for showing eligibility to offer bids for tenders worth over Rs 1 crore. Fudged figures of pending works with civic bodies and other government departments were being produced by some contractors but surprisingly, the officials did not care to cross-check the figures for obvious reasons.

Work begins without work order

The work awarded to the contractor for laying interlocking tiles on Rahon Road, falling in the Ludhiana East Assembly segment, has commenced and was inaugurated with fanfare by Congress legislator Sanjay Talwar even before the formal work order had been issued to the contractor.

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