BMP officials find several lapses during work audit

BMP officials find several lapses during work audit

The Hindu

An audit of 474 civil works was done by a 10-member team of the civic body

# Most of the works were executed in a shoddy manner
# Chief Accounts Officer directed to scrutinise all bills claimed by contractors

BANGALORE: No quality check on most of the freshly asphalted roads; change of work has not been approved by the competent authority; estimates, records and measurement of works completed do not tally; bills have been claimed for desilting drains, which have never been cleaned.

All these and many more lapses have been found after an audit of 474 civil works by a team of 10 officials from the civic body.

Of the 2,500 works, whose bills to the tune of Rs. 220 crore are yet to be cleared by the BMP, a physical inspection of 474 works was done in the last few days.

As a result of the audit, ordered by BMP Commissioner K. Jairaj, the payments of contractors who have executed the work have been held up and disciplinary action has been initiated against the jurisdictional executive engineers.

Admitting that most of the 474 works, which were studied by the officials, were done in a shoddy manner, the commissioner told presspersons on Thursday that the Chief Accounts Officer had been directed to scrutinise all bills claimed by contractors.

Reacting to the corporators' criticism that he had put a hold on all works that had been sanctioned by the previous commissioner, Mr. Jairaj said with the available resources it was not possible for the BMP to complete all works and also start new ones.

"The requirement is more than the availability of funds. But I have assured the corporators that the 188 works that have been coded (works are coded under the Fund Based Accounting System) and also the spillover works will be completed by September 15," the BMP Commissioner said.