Water Supply Projects: On Tuesday, the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) accused the government of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) of engaging in fraudulent practises during the implementation of huge piped water supply projects throughout the state.
During a press conference that took place here, the president of the OPCC, Sarat Pattanayak, and the head of the campaign committee, Bijay Patnaik, accused the state government of engaging in widespread bribery in the process of awarding tenders for the projects.
An estimated ninety-six percent of the projects have been awarded to contractors based in states other than Odisha. In order to guarantee that individuals from other states would be awarded the projects, tenders have been solicited to combine anything from five to ten individual projects into a single bunch/package. Patnaik explained that as a consequence of this, local contractors are unable to meet the requirements necessary to take part in the bidding.
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”Due to this bunching, Odia contractors have failed to qualify in the tender process,” he said. The government has bundled water supply projects covering 214 villages of Angul district into one tender worth Rs 262 crore, while in Sundergarh district, one tender invited for a mega project is worth Rs 786 crore, he said. In Angul district, the government has invited one tender for a mega project worth Rs 786 crore. According to the head of the Congress party, the purpose of the move is to guarantee that contractors from outside of Odisha would win the contracts and that the locals will be kept in the dark regarding any bribe money that may be traded between the contractors and the government.
”Who made the decision to group the project together…who is in charge of the department—the chief minister, the minister, or the department secretary?” he inquired.
Patnaik referred to it as a “mega scam” perpetrated by the government and called for a comprehensive investigation to be conducted by either the CAG or the Lokayukta. According to the information that was presented in the state legislature by the minister of panchayati raj, the president of the OPCC stated that just 16 out of 205 mega piped water supply (PWS) projects have been completed up to this point.
Pattanayak reported that as a result of the delay, the total expected cost of the 16 projects that were finished increased from 1,743 crore to 1,931 crore.
According to him, even though the projects are intended to be finished within two years of the awarding of contracts, those projects have been purposefully delayed so that the price may be increased and contractors from outside of Odisha can gain from it.
The leaders of the governing BJD were not immediately available for comment on the accusation.
