New Delhi: Delhi Lieutenant-Governor V K Saxena has ordered a probe by the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) into “delay, cost overruns and arbitration payment” allegedly made to a private contractor in the Barapullah extension project, Raj Niwas officials said
on Tuesday.
The role of previous ministers as well as officers of the Public Works Department (PWD) and Revenue and Delhi Transco Limited (DTL) is under the scanner, they said. The L-G’s order comes on the recommendations of Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, the officials said.
“The L-G has ordered an ACB probe into the more-than-a-decade delay in construction of the Barapullah flyover. This delay caused a loss of hundreds of crores of rupees to the Delhi government exchequer by way of cost overruns and payment of arbitration penalty to the private contractor Larsen & Toubro (L&T),” said an official of the L-G Office. The L&T, when approached for its reaction over the issue, refused to comment.
A proposal for the probe was made by the Directorate of Vigilance, following a decision of the Expenditure Finance Committee headed by the Delhi chief minister.
The L-G, while approving the proposal, noted on file that the “extraordinary delay” in the project has raised some “fundamental policy issues” that must be addressed, the official said.
“The cascading impact of lapses of various agencies resulted in arbitration proceedings, forcing the government’s hand to pay an additional Rs 255 crore on account of arbitration award, which was accepted by the department. The High Court, in fact, attached the account of PWD to enforce execution of the payment,” the L-G noted. The project, which was started in 2015 during the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government’s tenure, is expected to be completed by June next year. The issues related to the project were discussed
at a meeting of the Expenditure Finance Committee on July 28 this year.