TEAM HERALD
PORVORIM: The contractors involved in works of the new building of Institute of Hotel Management at Porvorim are allegedly yet to receive payments for the last eight months, even though the building is complete.
The PWD, however, has insisted that payment has been released to the contractors after completion of procedures.
The existing building of the institute was built when the intake capacity of the students was only 60. Since the intake capacity of Indian Institute of Hotel Management has now increased to 307, due to an increase in OBC quota, etc, the expansion of the existing building was needed.
The Central government gave a green signal to the institute to go ahead with expansion of the institute and accordingly remitted funds.
The Institute of Management had deposited Rs 80 lakh received from the Central government for electrical works with the Public Works Division No IV. One of the electrical contractors, who undertook the electrical job for Institute of Hotel Management, submitted his bill for Rs 12 lakh almost 8 months ago, however, the bill is still not settled by the PWD. Similar is the case with other contractors too.
Speaking to Herald, one contractor, on condition of anonymity, said that as per the procedure of Public Works Department, junior engineer records the bill, assistant engineer certifies it and executive engineer checks and passes the bill and then forward it to the Principal Chief Engineer, who then sends it to the Directorate of Accounts to release the payment.
“Since the Central government has already remitted the payment in advance to IHM, who in turn deposited it with PWD, the payment should have been released on priority basis. The very fact that our bills have not been settled for the last eight months indicates that PWD has possibly diverted the funds to other projects,” claimed the contractor.
When contacted, PWD Principal Chief Engineer J S Rego denied that there was delay in release of payment to the contractors. “The payment is released to the contractors after completion of office procedures only. The bills of the contractors were recorded in our office in November/December 2013 and they were sent to the Directorate of Accounts on January 6,” informed Rego.
“We have been given to understand by the Directorate of Accounts that they have released the payments to contractors. It is possible that some payments could not get credited to the accounts of the contractors due to the strike of the bank for two days,” said Rego.
