Consultant to monitor roadworks in twin cities

Consultant to monitor roadworks in twin cities
The Hindu

HUBLI: Residents of Hubli and Dharwad may now look forward to better roads in the coming months as there will be a separate agency to ensure and monitor the quality of work.

The Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (HDMC) on Friday approved a proposal to employ STUP Consultants of Bangalore for supervising, testing, sampling and certification of roadwork in the twin cities, which is underway at a cost of Rs. 30 crores. At a meeting here, the corporation decided to award the contract worth Rs. 54 lakhs to STUP Consultants.

Tenders

The corporation had called for tenders for development of roads at a cost of Rs. 30 crores. The project is divided into four packages. The Chandragiri Construction Company commenced work under the first package some time ago. But soon there were complaints regarding the quality of the work by some members of the HDMC council.

Since one of the conditions in the contract agreement is that the work will be supervised by a third party, the commissioner had asked the construction company to temporarily suspend the work until the services of a consultant are employed.

Delay

But the appointment of a consultant got delayed because of higher rates quoted by the consultants in response to the tenders called by the corporation. The issue was then referred to the City Planning and Development Standing Committee for holding negotiations with STUP Consultants.

The committee recommended to the council that the tender may be allotted to Stup Consultants at 1.8 per cent above the estimated rates.

Now with the council approving the tender the suspended the work under the first package is expected to be resumed shortly. Meanwhile, the corporation has finalised the other three packages of after negotiation and the State Government has given its approval to them.

Heated debate

The meeting that began in the morning could not take up issues on the agenda till 4.30 p.m. as there was a heated discussion on the move to increase water cess.

The issue of raising the water cess from a minimum of Rs. 45 to Rs. 90, which has been approved, was again raised in the meeting through a call attention motion by Ashok Jadhav, BJP councillor.

The debate continued for most part of the day. But there was no progress on the issue as the commissioner announced that there will be no going back on the decision. Finally, the Mayor announced that the motion has been dropped.