The Tamil Nadu government has identified poor laying of road infrastructure in nine of the 25 sites surveyed and has placed officials concerned under suspension. Tenders for those projects have been cancelled and departmental action has been initiated against officials, Minister for Highways E.V. Velu announced in the Assembly on Friday.
Mr. Velu was responding to concerns raised by VCK legislator S.S. Balaji (Thiruporur), who said the quality of some roads was quite poor, and had sought action.
Mr. Velu said the Highways Department had identified 25 sites for surveying on the advice of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, and in nine of them, it was found that the road infrastructure was poorly laid. The Chief Minister alerted him as early as 6 a.m. after watching a news report about people protesting against a poorly laid road in Sivaganga district, he said.
Roads were poorly laid in Tiruvannamalai and Tiruchi too and officials concerned have been placed under suspension and departmental action has been initiated against them, Mr. Velu added.
During another debate, Mr. Velu said the erstwhile DMK regime [2006-11] implemented phase I of the Chennai Outer Ring Road project at an estimated cost of ₹1,081 crore and phase II, by the subsequent AIADMK government, at an estimated cost of ₹1,075 crore.
Though both phase I and II were almost of the same length (29 km and 30 km), under the agreement signed by the DMK government, the government had to pay only ₹63.13 crore once in six months to the contractor for phase I, but under the agreement signed by the AIADMK government for phase II, the sum payable to the contractor was ₹119.97 crore once in six months, he pointed out.
The difference has resulted in a “loss of about ₹1,886 crore to the State exchequer,” Mr. Velu contended and added that the DMK government was always careful about spending funds collected from the people as taxes. Countering the charge, Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K. Palaniswami said the difference was because the State government spent about ₹300 crore in phase I, but for phase II, the AIADMK government paid only about ₹196 crore.
Unconvinced, Mr. Velu said a difference of only about ₹100 crore in investment should not have resulted in a loss of about ₹1,886 crore to the State exchequer in the long run.
