The Times of India 31.08.2012
Sector 22 garbage exposes HUDA claims
GURGAON: Residents of several sectors in the city were appalled to know that lakhs of rupees were paid to the contractors for cleaning up roads, since they did not see any work being done in the past four months.
In an RTI reply, HUDA
had claimed to have spent over Rs 61 lakh in three months on sanitation
and clean-up work in over eight sectors and main roads in the old city.
Raman Sharma, who filed the RTI, said: "HUDA must find out on
what basis these payments were made to contractors. How many trucks
laden with garbage
or mud were sent to Bandhwari for dumping and number of labourers and
JCB machines used for cleaning up the roads." The RTI mentions the hefty
payments to contractors for cleaning up roads in Sector 22 in January, February and March.
TOI spoke to the residents and the residents' welfare association (RWA)
of the sector to make a reality check of HUDA's claims. Expressing shock over the claim of HUDA, the RWA president, Bhim Singh Yadav,
said: "This is a scam if different contractors have been paid lakhs of
rupees to clean up roads in Sector 22. There is hardly any labourer
working in the sector, so HUDA officials must go back and check where
the work was done and the money paid." Yadav said that the condition of roads inside the sector has worsened during the monsoon.
"This is a matter of probe that payments have been made for the work,
even though no work has been done," said Yadav. In the RTI reply, HUDA
has stated that the contractor, M/s Ram Premi Co, was paid Rs 4.69 lakh
in January, Dharambir Singh Contractor was paid Rs 4 lakh in March this
year for cleaning the road of Sector 22 alone. The RTI reply also
disclosed that between January and March, Sheetla Mata Mandir road alone
had been cleaned up.
A TOI team that visited the road found
that it continues to be in a shambles. "There is no improvement in the
condition of the road and the officials did not check the quality of
work before paying the contractor," said a resident, Rajeev Saxena.
Echoing Saxena's words, Bhawani Tripathi, a resident Sector 23, said: "I am surprised that the roads are not cleaned up in the sector and still huge payments are being made to the contractor. This is something which needs to be probed."
In the RTI reply, HUDA has stated
that for cleaning up Shankar Chowk and Sikanderpur, the contractor was
paid Rs 2.51 lakh in March. "The condition %of the entire stretch
between Shankar Chowk and Sinkanderpur remains pretty much the same.
HUDA simply paid the money without checking anything," said another
resident, Mahesh Yadav.
