Quality re-check of some CWG projects

IIT-Roorkee and IIT Delhi are among the institutions which are carrying out third party quality checking of Commonwealth Games projects in Delhi:

Virtually rejecting CVC findings of sub-standard quality of work in some of the Commonwealth Games projects, Delhi government has requested the corruption watchdog to carry out a "re-check", indicating lapses in its procedure to lift samples. PWD Principal Secretary K.K. Sharma has said, following the CVC report, his department has conducted a series of "standard tests" in renowned institutions to check the quality of construction of five major projects but did not find anything wrong with them.

"Now, we have requested the Central Vigilance Commission to take the samples again and conduct a retest as our tests showed that there is nothing wrong in the quality of construction," he said. An assessment report prepared by CVC's Chief Technical Examination Wing in July, found large-scale procedural violations, including corruption in 16 different projects being carried out by various government departments. Six of the projects out of the 16 mentioned by the CVC were implemented by the PWD where the watchdog found sub-standard quality of work.

The senior official said the CVC has sent a fresh letter to Delhi government Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta two weeks back asking him to present a detailed response about the questions raised by it. "We carried out the tests in renowned institutions and test report did not indicate any compromise with quality of material or overall standard," Sharma said, adding that he has directed his officials to prepare a detailed report which will be submitted to the CVC. "The findings of the various tests done by us have already been sent to the CVC. Now it is up to them to decide on the issue," he said. Another top official said any enquiry by the CVC's Technical Examination Wing is preliminary in nature and no detailed probe has been carried out by it so far. "In all our projects, third party certification is a must and institutions like IIT-Delhi and IIT-Roorkee are carrying out third party quality checking. So there is little room for any compromise on quality," said PWD chief engineer A K Sinha. The PWD had initiated a host of key infrastructure projects worth over Rs 5,000 crore as part of its efforts to enhance city infrastructure ahead of the Games.

The CVC report said that almost all organisations executing construction work for the Games have flouted rules in tenders and increased their prices.