Tura, July 6: Garo Hills based NGOs. AYWO and FAF have written to the Deputy Commissioner of West Garo Hills (WGH) over what they claimed was sub-standard work being done by the contractor in the making of the road between Rongkhon Songgital and Asibra in the town of Tura.
The project, as per the NGOs, was provided to one Bimal Agarwala.
The NGOs stated that they had been approached by the development committees of the various villages using the road of extremely poor construction work. Accordingly, an RTI, including the Detailed Project Report (DPR) was sought.
The NGOs added that when they went to visit the site of the project, they found that the project had not been done according to DPR and would hardly last one year.
“He (contractor) has not executed the project diligently and this is not acceptable. The road has not only suffered from negligence but from the looks of it, has been done to execute corruption. The villagers had even asked him to work diligently on the road but he paid no heed to them,” informed AYWO president, Sengbath Marak.
According to them, there were many shortcomings in the project as a stone masonry wall was supposed to have been constructed but is missing. Further drainage of 1509 kms was manipulated and shortened while also not being executed properly.
“The above mentioned road can only be used for a period of a year due to its poor construction quality. We are apprehensive that the GSB, first and second coating have also been manipulated while the final carpeting is not of the thickness mentioned in the DPR,” added Marak.
The NGOs questioned the ethics of both the contractor for doing such shoddy work as well as the department that passed the work after inspection.
“We have on multiple occasions tried to meet the PWD engineer (North – Division) on the issue but it has been in vain,” they added.
In their complaint to the DC, the NGOs have sought an immediate inquiry into the matter as well as the blacklisting of the contractor for the shoddy work. Further they also asked for the ‘siphoned’ money to be recovered and the work redone as well as action against the supervisor of the project for passing such sub standard work.