Govt yet to assign audit task to IIT Guwahati

SHILLONG, June 2: The state government is yet to decide on assigning the task of auditing the collapse of the steel dome of the under-construction Assembly building to the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG).
Officials told The Shillong Times on Thursday that the state government received responses from the IITG, Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee and IIT Delhi expressing keenness in taking up the assignment.
IIT-Kharagpur chose not to respond, they said.
The officials said all three institutes had quoted their rates for conducting the audit.
The PWD (Building) compared the statement of each respondent and found that IITG was the lowest bidder, an official said.
“The department will now place the comparative statements before the state government. It is most likely that IIT-Guwahati will be asked to do the audit since it was the lowest bidder,” he added.
Replying to a query, the official said an IITG team had visited the site of the new Assembly building for inspection and to make an initial assessment on May 27.
He clarified the IITG team did not start the audit exercise since the task is yet to be handed over officially. The state government is expected to take a decision in this regard soon, he added.
PWD (Buildings) Minister, Dasakhiatbha Lamare had earlier said a team comprising 25-30 members from IITG had arrived in Shillong and started the audit of the Rs 127-crore Assembly building project. The team would also prepare a technical report on the reason(s) behind the collapse of the central dome on May 22, he had said.
The IITG team conducted a recce of the site on Saturday and sought a month’s time to complete its task, PWD (Building) officials had told the media. The officials also said that the IITG team had brought along all the necessary equipment to carry out the exercise.
They further said senior PWD engineers will assist the IITG team and provide all logistical support.
The High-Powered Committee of the Assembly had decided to entrust a third-party institution to conduct an audit and probe the incident.