EE reacts to fund misuse allegation

ITANAGAR, Aug 24: The executive engineer of the RWD DPIU-II in Upper Subansiri HQ Daporijo has denied the All Giba Circle Vigilance Forum’s allegation that the RWD DPIU-II released a bill amounting to Rs 15 crore against the Phase-I work for the Menga-Lungte PMGSY road to the contractor, despite hardly 20 percent of work having been done in Phase-I.

In a clarification he issued on Monday, the EE said the project had been sanctioned during 2016-17 “for amount of Rs 30 crore 46 lakhs, and accordingly the work was awarded to M/s Landmark Engg and ATW (JV) through e-procurement process.”

The EE said the work started and the “execution of work is in progress without break, even during the pandemic.”

He said that so far Rs 15 crore has been released to the contractor against the works executed, such as cross drainage, protection work, widening, road signage, etc.

“As far as quality work is concerned, all mandatory test has been conducted and road has been inspected by NQM, SQM, including senior officer from the department, and all inspecting officers have graded satisfactory to quality of work,” the EE said.

Terming the allegation levelled against DPUI-II “malafide, baseless, (and) without any iota of truth,” the EE said the department is ready to face inquiry by any government agency.