Pune civic chief Kunal Kumar cancels cement-concrete road tenders
By considering the proposed ambitious 24x7 water supply project, the office of municipal commissioner had earlier issued a circular to road department and ward offices stating that roads less than 12 metres wide would not be concreted for three years.
The announcement of Pune municipal commissioner Kunal Kumar’s transfer to the Central government on deputation has also affected the steps that he has taken for the city. The civic chief said that notices have been sent to the ward officers who had published tenders for road concretisation work. The notices were issued to the officers on Monday itself, the day the tenders appeared in newspapers
By considering the proposed ambitious 24x7 water supply project, the office of municipal commissioner had earlier issued a circular to road department and ward offices stating that roads less than 12 metres wide would not be concreted for three years. The civic chief had also directed the authorities to seek the permission from water department and technical committee before proposing such work. This circular was issued just a week before.
Ignoring the municipal commissioner’s circular, ward offices published an advertisement in newspapers calling for tenders for constructing cement concrete roads at an estimated cost of Rs20 lakh.
Kumar said, “Notices has been issued to the officers who published these tenders and all the tenders are cancelled.”
As PMC has planned the 24x7 water work, almost 1,700 km roads would need to be dug up, including the roads that are already cement concretised recently, for the water scheme. The circular was issued by the civic chief to curb wastage of public money on road concreting.
Sajag Nagrik Manch (SNM) founder member Vivek Velankar said that as Kumar has been transferred and his replacement yet to be appointed, the officials took benefit of this opportunity and published the tenders. He said that ward officers have shown disrespect to the commissioner’s circular.
“Kumar’s transfer was announced last week and the advertisements published on Monday means that it was intention. It is true that there is pressure from elected members to construct concrete roads as they are worried about lapse of budget amount. Elected members just want to use their budget money and are not bothered whether these freshly laid cement roads would get dug up again in six months for the 24x7 water scheme. All political parties are same when it comes to wasting taxpayers’ money.”