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MCG’s engineering wing to continue to operate without financial, administrative powers; new layers added for project approvals
Gurugram: The engineering wing of the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) will continue to be stripped of financial and administrative powers, a move which was
Gurugram: The engineering wing of the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) will continue to be stripped of financial and administrative powers, a move which was put in place in June 2019 following allege irregularities. In addition, MCG commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh introduced has introduced various new stages for approval of projects related to the engineering wing.
In April 2019, the MCG had discovered alleged irregularities in sanctioning of 35 bills to private contractors by engineering wing officials. Two executive engineers were allegedly found to be guilty, and a recommendation was subsequently sent to the state government for filing a charge sheet against them.
Based on these findings, two months later in June 2019, former MCG commissioner Amit Khatri had stripped the engineering wing of administrative and financial powers altogether. Before this, the MCG’s engineering wing had the power to sanction projects up to Rs 20 lakh on its own.
According to an order by the MCG commissioner, a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times, additional commissioners will continue to enjoy powers to sanction funds for projects costing between Rs 10 lakh and 50 lakh, while joint commissioners will be able to approve approve projects costing up to Rs 10 lakh, as was the procedure before.
Singh has also listed the channel through which such files of the engineer wing can be approved.
For releasing funds for development works costing up to Rs 10 lakh, the file will be sent by the executive engineer concerned to the joint commissioner for final approval.
For projects costing between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 50 lakh, the executive engineer concerned will send the file to the superintending engineer, and subsequently to the additional commissioners for final approval.
According to Singh’s order, the power to approve such files from zones two and four will rest with additional commissioner Sunil Kumar, while additional commissioner Amar Deep Jain will have the power of approving such files from zones one and three.
For projects costing between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore, the executive engineer concerned will have to forward the file to the chief engineer for approval.
On Thursday, Singh made MCG chief engineer Raman Sharma to look after projects in zones one and three while the other MCG chief engineer, ND Vashisht, will focus on zones two and four.
After getting approval from the chief engineer, the file will go to the additional municipal commissioner for approval, and the MCG commissioner will give the final approval.
“All such files will go through various stages of approval such as site inspections, satisfactory results of test samples and other relevant quality tests. The various stages have been put in place to ensure that malpractices can be identified and all construction materials have a certified quality check,” said Singh.
On January 18, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar had increased the financial powers of municipal commissioners across the state from the previous Rs 1 crore to Rs 2.5 crore, and the finance and contract committee from the previous Rs 4 crore to Rs 10 crore.
