Need for quality works at remote areas
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: November 27, 2014 -
Even though the government has been working hard for bringing about balanced development of the hills and the valley of the state, contractors and work agencies often jeopardize the government efforts by compromising quality in implementing development works in remote places.
Very often, the employees of various work agencies in connivance with the contractors working in remote hilly places loot huge amounts of public money by negotiating the quality of development works.
Even if the contractors are willing to maintain the prescribed specifications, the engineers working in majority of government approved work agencies do not supervise the works in remote places as they are reluctant to visit the work sites.
In most cases, the work agencies approve the bills just on the basis of photographs submitted by the contractors.
In such a scenario, working in the remote hill areas has become a boon to contractors and the engineers working in work agencies as well.
As long as the work agencies of Manipur government remain insincere and adamant on supervising quality of development works in hill districts, the efforts of state government for a balanced development of both hills and valley will be a far cry.
As the government does not directly implement works in various far-off places, the role of work agencies and contractors is highly important in maintaining quality works.
Nowadays, complaints on poor quality of works have galore the media pertaining to roads, bridges, buildings etc. in the remote hill areas.
In a recent joint inspection undertaken by Zeliangrong bodies on November 24 last, the recently inaugurated 50 bedded hospital at Duigailong in Tamenglong has been found in a dismay condition.
Representatives of Zeliangrong Youth Front, Tamenglong zones and Zeliangrong Students’ Union Tamenglong (ZSUTD) have been saddened to see the poor quality of the hospital building where cracks have been developed on its beautifully painted walls and ceiling.
This newspaper has also published the picture of the cracks developed on the wall and ceiling of the new building.
Besides the low quality of the construction, a number of other works at the hospital premises are also found to be incomplete.
The team also found that there was no drainage in all the buildings, no wall fencing, no parking place, and no drinking water provision inside the premises of the hospital.
A sum of Rs. 14.37 Crore was sanctioned under the Prime Minister’s Package in November 2006 for the construction of the 50 bedded District Hospital and also for installing certain equipment.
DRDA, Tamenlong is the work agency for the said construction, while special contractor Keibamdi, sub-contractor Digaipou, sub-contractor Poukin Panmei and another sub-contractor Ajang Gangmei are doing the contract work.
As per the revelation by a work in-charge at the hospital site, the work agency DRDA does not release the fund on time and has not updated the rates and prices of various materials used in the construction.
The person also complained that officials from DRDA, Tamenglong including the engineers seldom visited the work site.
It is high time the state government paid due attention towards the working of its approved work agencies particularly in hill districts of Manipur.
Otherwise, hill people’s claim of ‘negligence’ of the hills by the government will remain as before.
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