The Times of India 30.08.2012
HUDA pays over and over; clean-up bill Rs 61L
Gurgaon: HUDA has claimed to have spent over Rs 61 lakh in three months for sanitation and cleaning up of roads in over eight sectors in Gurgaon.
In its reply to an RTI filed by Raman Sharma, HUDA gave area-wise details of the expenditure and payments made for sanitation and clean-up works on roads and sectors by private contractors. In the first three months, Rs 17 lakh, Rs 17 lakh and Rs 26 lakh were paid to over a dozen different contractors.
According to HUDA's response, between January and March, Sheetla Mata road and Palam Vihar road was cleaned up by different contractors five times.
"The condition of these two roads, however, has not improved much but HUDA kept on paying the contractor again and again without checking the quality of work," said Sharma. In January the two roads were cleaned twice by two different contractors.
The RTI reply stated that in January HUDA paid O P Sharma Contractors Rs 4.47 lakh for working in Sectors 5, 6, 12, 12A,18, Sheetla Mata Mandir Road and Palam Vihar Road. Interestingly, the same month another contractor Ansh Enterprises was paid Rs 4.91 lakh for carrying out sanitation and cleaning up of the roads in 12, 12A, 5 and Sheetla Mata Mandir Road and Palam Vihar Road.
In the same month another contractor, M/s Ram Premi Contractor, was paid Rs 4.69 lakh for working in Sector 22 alone.
In February, roads in Sectors 22, 23, 23A, 5, 12 and 12A were cleaned up by different contractors. The two roads, Sheetla Mata and Palam Vihar, were also cleaned up. The RTI reply also revealed that the contractor, Ram Premi, alone was paid thrice, totally over Rs 8 lakh for cleaning up 23 and 23A. "It is worth noticing that all the work was sanctioned on the same day (23 January 2012) for Sector 23 and 23A. The HUDA officials blindly sanctioned the works and made the payments," said the RTI activist.
The expenditure swelled drastically in March and rose to Rs 26 lakh for the eight sectors falling under HUDA division (2). The maximum payment, Rs 4.97 lakh to B P Sharma Contractor for cleaning up roads was made for Sectors 3, 6, 5, 12A and Sheetla Mata Mandir Road.
Work on Sector 22 roads was given twice to another contractor, Dharamvir Singh Contractor, and payments of Rs 4 lakh and Rs 3.04 lakh were made by HUDA. The same contractor was paid Rs 2.51 lakh for clean-up work in March this year.
