Little headway in road works

IBNlive, Feb 16, 2012

BHUBANESWAR: Three World Bank-aided road projects are running much behind the schedule due to incompetence of the executing agencies.

�The World Bank had sanctioned loan for widening and strengthening of three roads - Bhawanipatna to Khariar, Chandbali-Bhadrak-Anandapur and Berhampur to Taptapani - under the Orissa State Road Project (OSRP). All the three projects commenced works in February 2009 and the scheduled date of completion was August 2011. However, the progress of the three projects is very negligible.

�The contract of the Bhawanipatna-Khariar road project was awarded to Patel-ARSS, a joint venture company on February 20, 2009.

Contract for widening and strengthening the 68-km stretch of the State highway was given to the joint venture company at an estimated cost of ` 105.51 crore with a condition to complete it in 30 months. Though the 30-month period is over the cumulative progress achieved was only 26 per cent by December 2011.

�“The contractor has not yet submitted the revised resource based work time programme in accordance with the contract agreement even after the 30-month period has lapsed,” the progress report stated.

�The reasons cited for the slow progress was delay in mobilisation of experienced key personnel, submission of resource-based work programme, problems in cash flow and frequent breakdown of hot mix plant and concrete batching plant.

�“Implementation of the environmental management plan remained the most neglected one,” the report stated adding that the contractor could not mobilise their environment and safety officer to the project site.

�Delay in shifting of utilities like water supply pipelines, electric power lines, telecommunication lines and cables are the other hindrance areas and prompt actions need to be taken up by department concerned, the report mentioned.

�The progress of Berhampur-Taptapani road project is no better. The 41-km stretch of road from Berhampur to Taptapani was awarded to Backbone-ARSS joint venture company at an estimated cost of ` 81.97 crore. The cumulative progress of the project was less than 22 per cent till the 2011-end.

�The contract of the 95-km Chandabali-Bhadrak-Anandapur road project with an agreement value of ` 216.23 crore was awarded to a joint venture company Somdatt Builders and ARSS Infrastructure in September 2008 and the project started work in February 2009. The work progress is not satisfactory.

�This came to the notice of the World Bank team during their recent visit to the State. The team expressed serious concern over the inordinate delay in the completion of the projects.