Telangana: Pre-monsoon preparedness is the golden goose for civil contractors
Hyderabad: “Pre-monsoon preparedness” is the golden goose for civil contractors. Every year they bag lucrative contracts from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and due to poor oversight by the municipal corporation, get inflated bills passed and rake in a hefty profit.
This year the GHMC has shelled out Rs 27 crore on monsoon preparedness towards road repairs, de-silting of nalas and cleaning of storm water drains.
Clearing water-logging
Pothole filling before the monsoon
De-silting of nalas and storm water drains.
The two heads under which contractors earn is labour charges and vehicles pressed into operation. GHMC pays contractors as per the standard rate per shift, that is, Rs 1,500 for two shifts. However, contractors get unskilled labour from villages and pay them half the amount, earning a tidy profit for themselves and producing shoddy work with an unskilled workforce. The second way in which the contract is lucrative is in falsifying the amount of work done. So where 10 km of a drain has to be de-silted, only 6 km is cleaned but the bill is for 10 km. Contractors make a minimum of 30 per cent extra on the total bill. In April, the GHMC central zone detected the de-silting fraud. It was found that 18 contractors cheated the corporation of about Rs 1.8 crore by producing fake weighbridge bills. The pre-monsoon work to de-silt some city nalas was allocated in 2016.
The contractors manipulated the quantum of silt removed, and the number of trips they made to dispose of the silt. This way they inflated fuel and vehicle charges, and then submitted their bills in March, which is a very rushed period and could ensure that their bills were not properly scrutinised. However, an internal audit exposed the scam and all 18 contractors were arrested by the Central Crime station.
These 18 contractors just got unlucky; this fraud on the taxpayer occurs in all the five zones of the corporation. A senior civic official says that the zonal heads must do the checking.
“The GHMC does not conduct weekly field visits to check on the work; they go by the quotation submitted by the contractors. Much of the work is incomplete, but the bills are released on time. The contractors mainly earn on the labour, bloated fuel bills, and fake vehicle numbers. The e-tendering system has cut the nexus between contractors and officials, where part of the kickback was given to the officer who approved the tender,” the officer added.
A part of the Rs 27 crore disbursed this year will be for essential work such as emergency teams for clearing fallen trees and hoardings and water stagnation. The staff has to be paid on a daily basis, whether the city receives rain or not during monsoon.
