Team Herald
PANJIM: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday exposed the PWD’s alleged corruption and favouritism in allocating road repair work worth Rs 15 crore without tender at Panjim and Pondato to one family of contractors from Kerala. These works were undertaken during the visit of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in October last year.
AAP General Secretary (Campaign) Francis Coelho said that Clause 2.2 of the PWD manual for emergency works was misused and even though only Rs 50 lakh worth of work was required to be completed on an urgent basis, an amount of Rs 12 crore was awarded under this clause in October 2021. But what was surprising was that additional Rs 3 crore was awarded for the same stretch of road in May 2022, he said.
According to Coelho, this scam of Rs 15 crore is only for roads in Panjim and Ponda, and the total amount of this scam if investigated in the rest of Goa may exceed Rs 100 crore.
He pinned the primary responsibility of this scam on Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant and PWD Principal Chief Engineer Uttam Parsekar, whose approvals are required to invoke Clause 2.2.
Coelho said, “This conspiracy started just before Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited the State last October when the Police Department recommended certain road works to reduce security issues resulting from potholes, speed breakers and traffic congestion. On this pretext, the PWD misused the urgency clause and gave emergency work orders worth Rs 12 crore to a family of contractors from Kerala.”
Adding that the contractor did not initiate the work in November because of unseasonal rains, Coelho said ex-post facto work orders were issued even though the work only commenced in December and was completed in March, with lightning-quick payment given to this contractor on March 23, 2022.
But it did not end there, Coelho said adding that a few weeks later in May, a new tender of Rs 3 crore for hot-mixing the exact same road in Panjim was issued and awarded to the same family of contractors from Kerala. This was before the onset of monsoon and the freshly hot-mixed roads had not even been affected by rain.
AAP National Youth Wing Vice President Cecille Rodrigues said that Revenue Minister Babush Monserrate had blamed the contractor when he was cornered after freshly hot-mixed roads in Panjim were washed away in the first heavy rains last month.
To this, PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral responded that the contractor shouldn’t be held responsible for the destruction of Panjim roads, because apparently only one layer of hot-mix had been applied when the heavy downpour began and work had to be stopped.
“Documents, however, show that the contractor received payment in March 2022 for complete hot-mixing including two layers,” she claimed.
