Hyderabad: Violating norms, the state government has asked the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corp. (GHMC) get roads laid afresh after the monsoon without issuing an official order. However, GHMC officials are worried that the move to get roads relaid by the same contractors without clearing pending bills could backfire on the civic body and it could also entail an additional spending of at least Rs 350 crore. The official claim that they have been issued oral instructions without an written orders.
This, they claim, would make them difficult to convince the audit and vigilance departments. The government also wants GHMC to get contractors to relay the roads without relaxing defect liability clause in the contractors and without calling for tenders. Defect liability clause in the contract ensures that the contractor is held responsible for any repairs that the road requires for a period of two years. In fact, the government is working out modalities for fixing a three-year defect liability for road contractors for ensuring better road maintenance for a longer period.
Even with stringent rules in place, they say contractors often indulge in irregularities and if the rules are relaxed, it will only benefit contractors and middlemen but not provide any relief to commuters. “The contractors have been indulging in several irregularities despite having stringent rules. If the rules are relaxed, the road conditions will turn from bad to worse and several hundred crores of rupees will be wasted,” the official said.
The corporation has embarked on a whopping Rs 721 crore worth of works to give a facelift to the city roads. When asked about the proposed plan to hand over of road maintenance to private players, the official said that the idea would not be viable for a city like Hyderabad which had different problems at different locations.
“The corporation has been carrying out surveys and preparing budget estimates for free and asking selected agencies to maintain the roads for two years. In case of failure to comply, the agency will be either blacklisted or legal action will be initiated. Private players will charge for everything. Unlike contractors, they will charge for even minor repairs and delay in payments will result in halting of works. The move will only benefit private agencies and not the commuters or the government,” the official added.
GHMC completes only 50 per cent of road laying works
The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has managed to complete a mere 50 per cent of the road laying works under periodical preventive maintenance (PPM), taken up at a cost of Rs 721 crore. Adding to the slow pace of works, the contractors to whom the works were allocated were laying a single layer when they were supposed to lay two layers to ensure good strength and prevent the road from getting damaged during the ongoing monsoon.
The newly laid single layer roads are prone to damage and about Rs 200 crore which has been spent on these roads will be wasted. Sources said that the civic body has been carrying out PPM on roads which were laid a year ago, some prior to the GHMC elections in 2015. The civic body had given work orders worth Rs 355 crore for 48 works, out of which 37 works were already in progress. A GHMC official said that works pertaining to Rs 26 crore were under approval. Out of 1047 lane kilometres, till date the corporation has completed about 400 lane kilometres of works, which is not even 50 per cent.
Termed PPM, the work involves milling of the existing BT road, re-profiling and re-laying it. It is ideally done once in five years. However, all that the GHMC has been able to do is mere patchwork at several stretches, which results in uneven bitumen pads in the middle of the road, eventually leading to bumpy rides. A senior GHMC official on condition of anonymity said that PPM works worth Rs 200 crore had been taken up in the city and if the contractors submitted the bills, the corporation was in a position to clear them.
The official said that till date the corporation had not received a penny from the special purpose vehicle, Hyderabad Road Development Corporation. which was formed to generate funds for PPM works. He said contractors had been submitting bills which the short-staffed civic body was unable to clear. When asked whether the single layer road would survive heavy rains, the official said that they might get damaged since roads would not have enough strength. Commenting on the wastage of public money, he said that the responsibility for road repairs would lie with the contractors and the corporation would only clear the submitted bills.
