Hummingbird News Desk
KRISHNAGAR, 31 DEC: Upset over the inordinate delay in constructing a 15-kilometer long road under Prime Minister Gramin Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), scores of villagers this evening gheraoed the engineers of West Bengal State Rural Development Agency (WBSRDA), Nadia division and prevented them from inspecting the incomplete road.
It is alleged that the disappointed villagers even manhandled the engineers, but the Kaliganj police officials who rushed to the site soon after hearing the incident, denied such allegation.
A police official said the villagers gheraoed the engineers but no untoward incident occurred as local ruling party leaders also reached the site and brought the situation under control.
The police official also said that no complaint has been registered with them following the incident.
Sources said Akshay Bhowmik, assistant engineer, Arjun Mahato and Prasanna Chakraborty, sub-assistant engineers had gone to visit the site this evening.
At Bhaga (NH-34), the villagers gheraoed them and sent them back without allowing them to conduct any inspection.
The enraged villagers alleged, “The engineers of the state agency are responsible for inordinate delay in the road works. The work order of the 15-kilometer road was given in 2016, but due to unfair means between executive engineer and contractors, the road has not been built till today. The road leading from Bhaga to Rajarampur – Ghoraikhetra is in a pitiable condition, which is awaiting a facelift from the past several years.”
According to the reports, West Bengal State Rural Development Agency, Nadia division had given work order to one M/S R K Sarkar agency to construct the road in 2016 at the cost of around Rs 7 crore but the agency did not complete the work even after repeated warnings from the state agency. Sarkar agency had reportedly built around 7 kilometre road and he was paid around Rs 3 crore for his work. As the contractor of the Sarkar agency did not respond to the warnings, the chief minister Mamata Banerjee intervened in the matter and she terminated the contractor. He was also terminated from 20 ongoing projects in Nadia and North 24 Paragans districts.
The executive engineer of WBSRDA, Nadia division, Biswajit Dutta had filed an FIR against the contractor of the Sarkar agency as he is still absconding.
Later, the state agency had given a work order to M/S Dream Construction agency to complete the work on 16 October, 2020. After a few months, problems erupted when the contractor noticed that he will have to work around 2720 metres of road (missing chainage), whose payment (around Rs 80 lakhs to Rs 1 crore) had already been disbursed to the previous Sarkar agency.
Mr Rana Biswas, contractor of the Dream agency alleged, “I repeatedly informed about the matter to the Executive Engineer, Nadia division, but he assured me that the problem would be solved. Accordingly, I have completed above noted work more than 60% in four months, but the officer expressed reluctance to make payment to me. Even, he tried to harass me in various ways. I have then kept my work stop because I have not received a huge amount of money for my work.”
Tags: #PMGSY #WBSRDL #VillagersGheraoedEngineers #Ghoraikhetra #Nadia
