Inquiry report on Road contract was not presented to the LMC commissioner
14 Dec, 2013
An application was filed with the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation (LMC) in May, 2011 under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking to get a copy of the report of the investigation conducted by the LMC regarding the payments made to the contractor for Pakhowal Road (from Sidhwan canal to MC limit).
The reply to the application from LMC stated that the demanded report could not be furnished as the concerned files were missing from the corporation's records. However, after multiple RTI queries, the report was provided to the applicant in January, 2013 though the corporation failed to provide the bills of bitumen used for the project citing that the files were still missing. Nevertheless, the RTI reply shows that the inquiry report was never tabled before the municipal commissioner. The report also shows that the Rs. 1.49 crore contract of repair of camber and laying 30mm SDBC on the road was awarded without analysing technical bids, despite it being mandatory to award contracts over Rs. 1 crore only after analysing technical bids of the bidder.
The report also reveals that the contractor executed the agreement on non-judicial stamp paper nearly 20 months after the issuance of work order, thus violating clause 8 of work order which mandates it to be done within 7 days of issuance of work order. The inquiry report also pointed out that the contractor was awarded the contract after a request in this regard by an area councilor even though it as debarred by the Finance and Contractual Committee (F&CC) for extensive delay in work.