What a ‘ BADLAV’ of govt , Reward for negligence.
Chandigarh, October 28 ( P2P): The work of relining of Sirhind feeder has once again come under controversy. The Punjab government has handed over the construction work to those engineers, who were charge-sheeted in corruption charges in the construction of the same canal case this year and the investigation is still going on. The work of re-lining the canal will continue from 30th November to 3rd January of next year and till then this canal will remain closed for water.
Sirhind feeder is being reconstructed intermittently for the last two years. This time the construction work is of 35 days, out of which 35 works are to be done, costing about Rs 100 crore. The special thing is that the work of construction of the Sirhind feeder is to be done by four executive engineers of the Water Resources Department, out of which two executive engineers Sukhjit Singh Randhawa and Yadvinder Singh are facing irregularities, use of substandard material, negligence. The department has charge-sheeted him along with other engineers. In April and May this year, the Sirhind feeder was breached twice at the same place, causing a lot of damage. In this case, the government suspended the SE of the Water Resources Department with immediate effect. But later, when the Vigilance Committee of the department constituted by the government investigated the matter, two executive engineers of Rajasthan Feeder and Eastern Canal Division, two SDOs, and two JEs were found guilty of negligence. Two contractors were also found involved with them on charges of negligence. Earlier, even after the canal construction in the year 2019, cracks appeared. The contractor had filled these cracks, but due to work-around arrangements, a similar situation had arisen again. It was also revealed in the investigation by the department that the design of the canal was made wrong and the seal and cement were also not used properly. But later, even after the repair, the officials started raising questions about the future of the strength of the canal due to such a situation. Questions have also been raised on the functioning of the Punjab government after handing over the work of the same canal again to two of the engineers who were charge-sheeted by the Punjab government regarding this matter. The Punjab government has appointed a retired PCS officer to investigate the matter of twice breached of this canal; the first hearing of this case is to be held on November 3.Minister for water resources could not be contacted in this context and the senior officers were not ready to comment.
