All major road-laying works in Anantapur district have come to a grinding halt with ₹60 crore of contractors’ bills pending from December last year and the new government stalling work on projects worth ₹650 crore seeking to review them.
There is a beeline of contractors to the office of Executive Engineer K. Shanti Kumar, who is also the in charge Superintending Engineer.
He told The Hindu that 73 different works with a contracted amount of ₹480 crore which were either completed or on the verge of completion, had got stalled as the previous government did not release funds since January 2019 and the contractors are waiting for their bills (₹60 crore) to be paid to continue their projects.
Another 45 projects for which tendering was completed in 2018-19 and were to be grounded at a cost of ₹300 crore were stalled by the new government. Another 90 projects where the total amount spent was less than 25% of the contracted amount (₹350 crore), were asked to be stopped and details sent to the State government for review.
A representative of S.R. Constructions, who have been doing road works, said due to non-release of bills they were incurring losses in lakhs of rupees on each earthmover (₹2.5 lakh) and other machinery hired for road works.
Incomplete RoB
If this was the scenario in the district, the most visible example of incomplete work was the Ram Nagar road over-bridge in Anantapur town, which became operational on February 26 this year. The service roads have not been completed and the contractor has stopped the work. Adding to the woes is the delay on the part of revenue officials in handing over the site for laying of a service road for the past eight months.
There is chaos as even the median and traffic islands on both ends of the approach road to the RoB have not been completed. It’s a free-for-all with vehicles criss-crossing the take-off point of the RoB.
While the Municipal Corporation waits for the R&B and the contractor to finish the work, no temporary arrangement has been made for controlling the traffic on either end.
