In the murky ecosystem of politicians, PWD engineers and contractors, the task of building or repairing a road, was a mere staring point, or the activity which allowed the universe to function, in a manner which was complex, yet seamless. At the end of it all, road building or repair, became irrelevant to the state but a part of planned process of money making cutting across political regimes.
The Executive Engineer or the Assistant Engineer was (or still is) the point person or the single window clearance who did the following tasks
a) Take orders, verbal or written from the minister to execute road works
b) Manage contractors, who often worked in a cartel and manage allotment keeping all sections of the cartel happy
c) Manage and clear payments to contractors. Often there were disputes, problems and even threats from contractors who allegedly paid kickbacks but did not receive amounts for bills that they raised.
Remember PWD contractor Vishwas Harmalkar, (the first of the three suicides of people connected to the PWD and the Water Resources Department), left behind a suicide note stating that he was ending his life because his bills were not cleared. At that point of time, the then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said, “It appears to me that his financial problem resulted from kickbacks. I don’t know for certain but this is what I’ve heard. He paid kickbacks so as to get the order.”
Mr Parrikar had also said that the PWD was not aware of how much it owes contractors. “For the last two months I have been behind PWD to give me the sum they owe but they are not able to provide me the details.”
Meanwhile, the contractors indeed are the big fish in the system. They performed as follows.
The major ones ran their own network of mini contractors who reported to them. The kickbacks paid to the department and to those who ran it, were routed through these big contractors. According to insiders the smaller contractors paid a 2% inflated kickback to the main contractor. The difference between the final sum that went to the department and the amount paid by the small contractors went to the big umbrella contactor. And very often they were not actually ‘contractors’. For instance there was a builder who was also a doctor and loved vintage cars.
He was closely linked to a very senior Karnataka politician, currently in the centre and was believed to be parking black money from other states.
Now, this doctor, builder, vintage car lover has completed a controversial building, with suspected CRZ violations and is firmly ensconced in the building project, was known to be using a lot of funds parked for the payment of advanced kickbacks, including the funds of a now deceased senior Maharashtra politician.
