Public Works and district in-charge Minister Satish Jarkiholi has asked senior officials of the State government to review all the works taken up under the Smart City Mission.
Officials of Urban Development, Finance and Public Works will review the works taken up in Belagavi and look into all allegations of irregularities. A committee of senior officials will be constituted to look into the various works taken up under the Mission, their technical specifications, financial feasibility and to see if officials and engineers have followed rules properly.
The Minister told The Hindu that he will soon issue orders constituting the committee that will have members from various departments.
“There are serious allegations that officials have spent crores of rupees on unnecessary things, over-evaluated works and have carried out low quality work. Belagavi has got close to ₹1,000 crore till now. But only a few crore rupees is left unspent. We are not sure of the quality of works taken up. All these will be probed into,” he said.
His comments follow some meetings held in Belagavi in the last week. Officials then brought it to the notice of Mr. Jarkiholi that some Smart City officials have taken up works at the Vaccine Depot in Belagavi South constituency, without the permission or consent of the Department of Health and Family Welfare that owns the urban forest. The police have already filed cases against some officials in this regard.
Earlier this month, Mr. Jarkiholi and Minister Lakshmi Hebbalkar took objection to some works taken up under the Mission. They spoke about indiscriminate choice of location of projects, lack of transparency in tendering and choice of projects, slow pace of projects and fewer public consultations.
BJP MLA Abhay Patil, in response, commented that if the State government has any doubts, it was welcome to order any inquiry.
Mr. Jarkiholi has asked officials to speed up works at the Belagavi City Bus Stand complex and the Kalamandir Art Complex at Tilakawadi.
He has also asked officials to utilise the Integrated Command and Control Centre that has facilities to unify the efforts of various departments, including the police, city corporation, health, transport and the Smart City Mission, to coordinate their activities.
Around ₹930 crore are being spent on 102 works in the city. Of these, 96 works have been completed and six are in progress. As many as six works under private-public partnership mode have been started. Only one of them has been completed. A total of ₹211 crore is being spent on these.
Of the ₹930 crore planned expenditure, the Centre’s share is ₹441 crore and the State government is contributing ₹439 crore.
