Official neglect results in cheap quality works

Singarayakonda: The cheap quality of the works being done with the Rurban funds in seven panchayats of the Singarayakonda cluster shows the apathy of the officials about the public money.

As per the census 2011, about 68 percent of Indian population lives in rural areas. The rural population has grown by 12 percent during the 2001-11 and number of villages increased by 2279 in the country.

Large parts of rural areas in the country are not stand-alone settlements but part of a cluster of settlements, which are relatively proximate to each other.

So, the government proposed the Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission (SPMRM) to develop such rural areas by provisioning of economic, social and physical infrastructure facilities.

The government also selected Singarayakonda from Kondapi constituency along with the Kuppam from Chittoor district, Kambadur of Kalyanadurgam assembly constituency from Anantapur district, Venkatachalam from Nellore district, Araku valley under tribal quota from Araku assembly constituency from Visakhapatnam district in the first 100 clusters list.

To develop the seven gram panchayats under the Singarayakonda, the government sanctioned Rs 100 crore and ordered them to utilize for laying cement roads, underground drainages, storm water drains and other works.

The officials set the end of December as the deadline to complete the works and charted out a schedule. But the contractors, who are working on the development works are using cheap gravel, sand and rubble powder to complete the works.

Due to the sudden rains few days ago, the walls of the storm water drains that were constructed under the Rurban mission were collapsed, as they didn’t have enough foundation and strength in the material.

The Panchayat Raj chief engineer, K Purushottham who inspected the works at Kanumalla road, Ayyappa Swamy temple, Edga Mitta, Malle Thota, Balayogi Nagar and other areas in the Singarayakonda, Old Singarayakonda expressed dissatisfaction over the completed works.

He expressed his anger on the officials for not supervising the works and announced that the works were not done as per the government guidelines.

Kota Srihari, the assistant engineer in Panchayat Raj at Singarayakonda said that they received information about the collapse of drains and inspected them.
He said that they ordered the contractor to rebuild the collapsed walls and announced that they will stop the bills until the contractor completes the works with quality.