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₹11.5 crore excess payment to contractor: PWD XEN among 4 engineers suspended
The action came after HT on August 31 highlighted how PWD’s internal probe had indicted officials. XEN and three junior engineers of PWD have been suspended, while four retired officials have been chargesheeted for giving undue advantage worth ₹11.5 crore to the contractor engaged by the department to construct a judicial complex in district headquarters at Nawanshahr
An executive engineer (XEN) and three junior engineers of Public Works Department (PWD) have been suspended, while four retired officials have been chargesheeted for giving undue advantage worth ₹11.5 crore to the contractor engaged by the department to construct a judicial complex in district headquarters at Nawanshahr.
The action came after Hindustan Times on August 31 highlighted how PWD’s internal probe had indicted officials. The probe titled ‘Misutilisation of funds regarding Judicial Court complex SBS Nagar’ was ordered by the department on July 7 this year. The probe was ordered after the Punjab and Haryana high court committee pressed the PWD department for the delay in the completion of work.
However, no action has taken against the contractor identified as ‘Ms Tung Builders’ to date.
Of the 11 indicted, four officials have been suspended, while four have been chargesheeted. Two officials — current superintendent engineer (SE) Vishal Gupta and XEN Ram Singh — have been issued show-cause notices.
Those suspended with immediate effect, under Rule 4 of the Punjab Civil Services (Punishment and Appeal) Rules, 1970, are XEN Rajinder Kumar and three junior engineers — Rajeev Kumar, Rakesh Kumar and Rajinder Singh. Those chargesheeted include executive engineers Balwinder Singh, Jasbir Singh Jassi, and sub-divisional engineer Ram Pal, all three are retired. Divisional accounts officer Rajesh Kumar Sinha has also been chargesheeted.
PWD minister Harbhajan Singh ETO said during the suspension, the headquarters of these officers will be the chief engineer office, Patiala.
The orders regarding the suspension and chargesheet were issued by PWD principal secretary Priyank Bharti on September 8.
All eight officials are now facing criminal cases for causing a loss to exchequer, and an FIR is likely to be registered against them, an official, who didn’t wish to be named, said.
The minister said that the PWD was the nodal agency for constructing this judicial court complex. Not only the project’s completion was delayed, but many discrepancies like excess payments to the contractor and flaws in construction were found, the minister said.
“Action has been taken against eight officers after fixing their responsibility, he added.
According to the probe conducted by the PWD headquarters, undue favour was given to the contractor in the form of price escalation, performance security, excess payment, payment of variation and releasing bank guarantee even as the work for the building was not complete.
A fresh tender worth ₹11 crore has been invited by the PWD department to complete the project.
Glaring shortcomings
The judicial complex was to come up in 13.2 acres of land at a cost of nearly ₹55 crore. In total, 11 courtrooms, 156 chambers for the lawyers, houses for judicial officers and basic infrastructural amenities were to be built.
The probe found that neither the work of fixing door frames was executed nor the material was available at the site. Same was the case for window frames, float glass panes and supply of steel for multilevel parking, Kota stone and coloured granite stones. This amounted to a loss of ₹3.42 crore, the probe committee found.
The contractor was given an escalation payment of ₹2.67 crore, whereas, as per the technical vetted estimate by the technical advisor to the chief minister, the provision for the escalation was kept at ₹1.85 crore, the report added.
The bank guarantee of the builder, deposited for the tender to the tune of ₹1 crore, was also released, and an officer has submitted to the probe team that signatures of the superintendent shown to the bank for the release of the guarantee amount are forged. The security amount of ₹2 crore was also released by the department to the contractor without even penalising him, the report further added.
