In yet another twist to the alleged irregularities in the construction of the new Assembly building, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) has revealed new facts which it said showed a clear attempt by the MDA government to bury the entire issue quietly.
According to AITC spokesman Saket Gokhale, after the collapse of the dome of the Assembly building in May this year, the State government decided to conduct an audit into the reasons for the collapse.
“However, instead of appointing IIT-Roorkee which had approved the original design, the Meghalaya government chose to appoint IIT-Guwahati instead. There is no clear reason as to why the original design auditors, IIT-Roorkee weren’t appointed,” he said.
Gokhale also said that in August, IIT-Guwahati submitted its audit report into the collapse of the dome to the State government. In this report, IIT-Guwahati said that the collapse happened due to lack of coordination between the designers and the contractors.
He also said that in 2018, IIT-Guwahati had floated a tender for construction of 160 units of F-type residential quarters for the institute and the cost of this project was Rs 136.86 crore. He also said that the contract for this tender was finally given to Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd which subcontracted the work to Badri Rai & Co.
“The pertinent question that arises here is how was IIT-Guwahati expected to give a neutral and independent report into the irregularities in the Assembly dome collapse when the erring contractors themselves are doing Rs 136.86 crore worth of work for IIT-Guwahati?” Gokhale asked.
Further, he said that in a clear conflict of interest, IIT-Guwahati, which has itself already allotted Rs 136.86 crore worth of contract to Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd and Badri Rai & Co, was asked to audit the Assembly dome collapse where it is clear that they would go easy on the two contractors who they themselves were working with.
According to him, it is clear that the Meghalaya government appointed IIT-Guwahati instead of IIT-Roorkee to probe the Assembly dome collapse purely to shield the contractors Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd and Badri Rai & Co and to bury the incident quietly without taking any serious action against the two contractors.
“The fact that IIT-Guwahati was told to audit the dome collapse and not IIT-Roorkee shows clearly that the MDA government illegally connived with the contractors and tried to bury the matter by not disqualifying/blacklisting the contractor and also by not even imposing a penalty,” Gokhale alleged.
Gokhale said that instead of blacklisting the contractor Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd for the dome collapse and for illegally subcontracting work to disqualified company Badri Rai & Co, the Meghalaya government decided to allow the same contractors to fix the collapsed structure at no extra cost.
The AITC spokesman said that in order to expose this entire illegal nexus, IIT-Roorkee or any other independent agency (which is not working with Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd or Badri Rai & Co) should be appointed for a fresh audit of the collapse of the dome of the new Meghalaya Assembly building.
He also said that the two contractors should be immediately blacklisted from the construction contract for the Assembly building and be penalised and that a fresh tender should be floated for the construction of the Assembly building.
Gokhale also demanded for an independent court-monitored enquiry to probe into the “shocking acts of collusion and connivance between the MDA government and the two contractors who have been allowed to violate all norms and who have been protected by the government despite their failures”.
“These new facts (as well as past revelations on various issues) show that there is entrenched corruption in the MDA government along with an unholy nexus with favoured contractors which has drained the public exchequer of crores of rupees. The MDA government must agree to an open debate if it is sincere and has its hands clean. But we know that they will continue to dodge and avoid this challenge because of the millions of skeletons of corruption that exist in their closet,” Gokhale said.
