Nexus Between Contractors, Corporators Ensures Potholed Roads

40 pc ‘cut’, only 40 pc work gets done
Nexus Between Contractors, Corporators Ensures Potholed Roads
The Times of India

Bangalore: Why are the city roads pathetic? Because no work gets done without a ‘cut’. The mamool, demanded at every stage of file movement, is a cool 40%. And how much work gets done? A mere 40%.

CM N Dharam Singh admitted only last week that a contractor-corporator nexus was what was coming in the way of quality works.

No wonder a contractor whose wherewithal is limited to his bylane or the road of a political bigwig is entrusted with responsibility.

Because all corporators, by consensus of the people at the Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (BMP), have some allegiance to one or the other contractor. If some women corporators rely on their contractor brothers, others have forged an indelible link with distant kith and kin or business contacts, so as to ensure smooth flow of moolah. Or so flows the allegation in BMP circles.

n Cut to a BMP council meeting in 2003: A crucial resolution, regarding awarding of consultancy work for regradation of the four valleys under the flood management programmes, was awaiting approval. The meeting was adjourned twice

At every stage of file movement, bribe is decided. File clearance by standing committee, resolution moved at council with ruling and opposition leaders’concurrence,okayed by ward corporator, engineering department.
Where the ‘cut’ goes

Contractor keeps a profit margin of at least 20 per cent.

40 per cent of the amount is split among mayor, standing committee members,ruling and opposition leaders, corporators, engineers and accounts department officials for final clearance of bills.

After all the ‘cuts’, only 40 per cent of work is implemented. How contractor-corporator nexus works
soon after the House met in the morning and when it resumed in the noon, the resolution was deliberately held back. Reason: the consultancy had not yet confirmed the corporators’ cut. It got approved just minutes before the House got adjourned only after an official wrote the amount on a chit and passed it on.

A former BMP commissioner who ventured into streamlining the garbage contracts mooted global tenders for the work. Corporators and local garbage contractors came down so heavily on him that on New Year’s day, the contractors went on a strike and stopped the garbage-laden trucks on the city roads. The commissioner was subsequently shifted.

Road works, mega-projects, garbage contracts, civil works or even the pettiest grill-fixing work — nothing moves without the “cut’’ here.

Sample yet another instance. In 2000, under the Rs 250-crore BOND scheme, many roads were supposed to be repaired. It supposed to have been handled by a competent authority but was finally awarded to Pallavi Constructions, a company that had been blacklisted by the same BMP Council which brought it back into the picture. It’s legion now the roads were not even as much touched, to say nothing of the allotted Rs 250 crore.

Says Prakash S, BJP spokesperson in the city: “Because of pressure from a section in BMP, some roads are awarded to particular contractors. MLAs who allege that contractors are causing road blocks are the ones who have maximum number of cronies as contractors. For years now, quality is not the criterion, just political and monetary pressure is.’’

But the BMP begs to differ. Still smarting under the tirade the CM launched against civic bodies, BMP commissioner K Jothiramalingam says it has been difficult to attract renowned contractors because they never come forward to take up work that does not dole out a solid Rs 50-100 crore, as packages. “For a package of Rs 12 crore two years ago, over 75 bid. But even after entrusting work to selected few, nobody did the work. We can take action against them later but the damage has been done, the deadline has not been met.’’

There’s another twist. The BMP’s terms in the recent road works tender — following the threemember expert panel’s recommendations — has irked contractors. So they boycotted the Rs 173-crore work of asphalting 1,000 km of roads, forcing the BMP to relax a few conditions and again invite short-term tenders.