Bad roads: UP government suspended 12 PWD engineers

The Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday suspended 12 engineers of the Public Works Department for laxity and negligence of duty in implementation of BJP’s pre-poll promise to make all roads pothole free.

The Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday suspended 12 engineers of the Public Works Department (PWD) for laxity and negligence of duty in implementation of BJP’s pre-poll promise to make all roads pothole free.

Engineers were suspended for poor performance in achieving the target set by the state government. (HT Photo)

Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who heads the PWD department, said three executive engineers, six assistant engineers and three additional engineers were suspended for poor performance in achieving the target set by the state government.

Maurya said a departmental probe had been ordered against four superintendent engineers, 13 executive engineers and 16 additional engineers. Under pothole free roads plan, chief engineers and superintending engineers were given responsibility of verification of 20 roads in all 75 districts. During verification, works executed under the plan on 55 roads in 18 district were found below standard.

In a series of tweets from the Government of UP handle, Yogi said there would be no compromise on the quality of work. Yogi’s tweets, however, were seen as a sign of his dissatisfaction with the PWD department headed by his deputy Maurya.

The UP CM had posted 11 tweets and in one of them lamented “ab bhi bahut si shikayatein aa rahi hain” (Many complaints are still pouring in). During review meetings, Yogi had expressed his displeasure with the functioning of over a dozen departments, but in his tweets he had focused only on the PWD department.