Minister suspends two PWD engineers

THEY COLLUDED WITH THE CONTRACTOR TO CHANGE STRUCTURAL SPECIFICATIONS OF AN UNDER-CONSTRUCTION DRAIN IN NORTH DELHI

The Delhi government on Saturday suspended two engineers for colluding with a private contractor responsible for constructing a drain in north Delhi and executing substandard civil work.

The suspension followed a surprise inspection of the work by public works department (PWD), health and industries minister Satyendra Jain. The minister found poor quality work in the construction of the drain. It was being built at north Delhi’s Sadar Bazaar area.

Jain visited the area after recieving complaints of substandard work being undertaken in the construction of a 600m-long drain. The engineers colluded with the contractor to reduce the thickness of slabs and the spacing in reinforcements of the drain.

“Jain directed the PWD department’s quality assurance (QA) team to conduct a detailed inquiry, and establish the extent of dereliction on part of the officials named and their alleged involvement in the lapses found in the execution of this work,” a Delhi government spokesperson said. “It was noticed during the inspection that a slab of the drain had been wrongly demolished; spacing of reinforcement was 200mm against the approved design spacing of 125mm. The thickness of the slab was around 100mm as against the design thickness of 150mm. The quality of concrete was also not up to mark and broke on slight hammering, despite the concrete slab resting on sandstone slabs,” he added.

The minister also directed repatriation of the superintending engineer responsible for this area, back to the central public works department (CPWD).

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia also reviewed several cases of dereliction of duty, financial misappropriation, violation of departmental guidelines and concealing vital information. He also recommended relevant authorities an increase in punishment given to the officers in four cases.