Contractors delaying projects to be blacklisted: Ashu

Ludhiana: Punjab food, civil supplies and consumer affairs minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu conducted a meeting with MC commissioner Pardeep Sabharwal, mayor Balkar Sandhu and other civic officials to review the progress of the ongoing development works in West constituency.
Irked over the delay in completion of works, he issued the instructions that the contractors who have either delayed the development projects or have failed to start the projects despite work orders being issued to them, would be blacklisted. He said that due to delay in the execution of the projects, residents are suffering and no laxity would be tolerated in terms of quality or speed of the development projects.
He said some of the MC contractors are taking MC for granted and strict action would now be taken against them. He also asked the officials to submit utilisation certificates of the completed works with the government so that more works could be sought. He said no funds should be left unused and every single penny should be spent for the welfare of residents.
During the meeting, the cabinet minister reviewed the development projects related to Ludhiana Smart City Ltd, operations and maintenance cell, horticulture branch, health branch, recoveries, etc.
He said the next payment related to the LED streetlights project would be made to the contractor only when he explains about the energy saving in detail. He directed the MC officials to impose a penalty on Tata Sons (contractor) for all non-functional streetlights without fail. He also appreciated the MC officials for getting GPS installed in all its vehicles through CSR, that would help in better monitoring.
He directed the horticulture branch officials to ensure that the Leisure Valley in Sarabha Nagar should be maintained properly and said he would personally visit the project next week. He also directed them to ensure that park management committees are formed for all parks of city.
Meanwhile, the MC Commissioner said this month there has been a lot of improvement in the recoveries. He said Rs 5 crore had been recovered as property tax, Rs 3.92 crore for water supply, Rs 3.32 crore as composition fee, Rs 23 lakh as building fee, besides others. He said targets had been assigned to the officials for maximum recovery so that these funds could be spent on the development of city. He also said a monitoring cell had been set up in the civic body that was taking samples of all ongoing projects and getting them tested from the laboratory at Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College here.
Later, Ashu, accompanied by all senior officials also visited the Sidhwan Canal waterfront project and Leisure Valley in BRS Nagar and issued instructions to the staff.