Abodh Sharma
Early Times Report
Jammu, July 3: Residents of the villages situated along the Bantalab-Seri Panditan road, the broadening and 4-lanning work on which is currently in progress are up in arms against the poor quality of work and sub standard material being used in the ongoing construction work.
While the resentment was brewing amongst the people for some time, it climaxed the previous day when a recently raised retention wall near Bhalwal village caved in following first rain of the season, exposing the alleged unholy nexus between the department of Roads and buildings and the concerned contractor.
Locals informed ET that they had been subtly objecting to the poor quality of material being used for the construction work under R&B Jammu, division -II, but the contractor and those supervising the work on site were paying no heed. "The huge retention wall was raised without using any steel and even the ratio of the concrete being used was much below the recommend norms; moreover, even a lay man would know that it was not possible to give required strength to such a huge wall without using any steel" said Dalbir Singh, a resident.
Upholding the apprehensions of the people, the wall failed to sustain the pressure of the maiden rain of the season and caved in the previous day. "We called the chief Engineer Jammu Alok Mengi and apprised him of our concerns, but he did not take our complaint seriously; he only advised us to leave the issue to the department" said Dalbir. "This is contrary to the claims of the Government that people should be made stake holders in the process of development" he added. Meanwhile, sources informed ET that there have been complaints against the contractor who has been allocated this work earlier also. "The complaints of sub standard material being used on the work of culvert near the Rashtriya Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya on the same road were earlier registered by locals and on inspection were found true, but no action was taken against the contractor because of obvious reasons" said Anshuman Singh, another local. "There is a criminal nexus between the officers of the R&B division -II and the contractor and we shall file a complaint in the vigilance organization if higher authorities failed to ensure that standard material was used and the work was done in accordance with the norms", he added.
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