Baripada: Inordinate delay in completion of the Subarnarekha irrigation project in Mayurbhanj district has resulted in huge cost overruns. Work on the ambitious project is nowhere near completion even though 22 years have passed since its inception in 1995.
The Subarnarekha irrigation project was aimed at providing irrigation to large tracts of farmland in Mayurbhanj and Balasore districts. The survey and groundwork for this major project were undertaken with the help of World Bank in 1982-83. Later, the World Bank pulled out of this leaving the state government to complete the work with its own funds.
As per guidelines, its chief engineer is supposed to float tenders for the project work and award the work to the L1 contractor. But there has been an exception to this usual tender process, it was alleged.
The chief engineer had floated a tender vide notice-4/15-16 dated September 23, 2015 for construction of its main canal at a cost of Rs 55.25 crore. Five contractors had participated in the tender. However, the water resources department cancelled the tender vide letter-2201(February 1, 2016), stating that the estimated cost of the canal work was too meagre to complete the project.
The department had later recommended (vide its letter-6277 March 11, 2016) to award the work to Orissa Construction Corporation Limited (OCC). The cost of the canal work was raised to over Rs 67.28 crore from Rs 55.25 crore and the work was given to OCCL which sublet the work to DD Builders Limited.
The water resources department recommended and awarded several other works of the project to OCC. The OCC was awarded the Rs 149.51 crore Haldia spillway work in 2016-17 and Baisinga feeder construction at Rs 98.53 crore.
What is most surprising, the OCC again sublet these works to DD Builders. According to a report, the water resources department had directly handed over the work to OCC without tenders floated by the chief engineer. Many seek to know why OCC favoured a particular contractor for all these work.
The state government spent Rs 1.5822 crore on land survey and other preliminary expenses in 1982-83. The project aimed at irrigating 1,09,627 hectares of farmland in Mayurbhanj and Balasore districts. A technical advisory committee in 1993 put an estimated cost of the project at Rs 1013.68 crore. Of this, Rs 790.32 crore was earmarked for Subarnarekha irrigation project in Orisssa and Rs 223.36 crore for its part in Jharkhand.
Its construction work was undertaken in 1995 and was supposed to end in 2000. Although 22 years have passed since the project took off, it has not been completed yet despite huge cost overruns. In 2013, the foundation stone for a canal work of the project was laid to irrigate 20 hectares of land. At that time, the department had set a deadline for completion of the project at 2017.
Now, the department has pushed the deadline back to 2019. It was learnt that the state government, NABARD and AIBP have spent Rs 3915.3962 crore by June 2017-18. Every year, the state government has been making budgetary allocations for the project, but there is no end to work.
It was alleged that though OCC is a government agency, it lacks human resources, expertise and experience. The major question is why OCC is being used to undertake the big-ticket project work.
Chief engineer of the Subarnarekha project Rabinarayan Pradhan said, “OCC is a government owned construction agency. It is completely OCC’s prerogative to decide which firm will be given the work. Though the Subarnarekha project authorities had floated tenders, the department can cancel the tender or award the work to OCC without tender. OCC supervises the work with its engineers always at the sites.” PNN
