North Bengal Dev dept set to showcause contractors delaying projects

kolkata: The state North Bengal Development department is set to show cause to contractors who are unnecessarily delaying completion of sanctioned works beyond "sanctioned date of completion".

Executive Engineers of the department in all the eight North Bengal districts — Malda, Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, North and South Dinajpur — to prepare lists of works those have not got completed within the set "date of completion" as stated in the respective work order.

This comes when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also the minister of the North Bengal Development department, has also directed to avoid unnecessary delay of the completion of any sort of development work.

The executive engineers have been directed to submit their report — containing name of work, date of initiation, set date of completion, name of the contractor and the reason behind the delay — to the department as early as possible.

The executive engineers have to tally all the ongoing works since 2011 while preparing the report, said a senior official of the department.

When contacted, Minister of State of North Bengal Development department Sabina Yeasmin said: "We will thoroughly go through the reports and would be issuing show cause notices to the contractors who will be found delaying the ongoing projects without any valid reason."

Sources said letters will be sent to district magistrates to direct contractors to refund the money in case any work has not started despite work orders being issued in 2016, 2017

and 2018.

"If the sanctioned project is found to be no more needed, the same fund can be utilised for some other projects that would be more helpful to people," she said.

At the same time a decision has been taken that the department will be carrying out "critical works" needed in the north Bengal districts.

The critical works include construction of culverts on canals to connect two blocks, small bridges, development of infrastructure of markets and auditoriums as and where required.

The state government has sanctioned Rs 776.51 crore to North Bengal Development department in the financial year 2021-22 that was Rs 710 crore in 2020-21 fiscal.