Bharat Bhushan Ashu in custody: Smart City project works under scanner

LUDHIANA: The Smart City project works in Ludhiana West, which former minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu—who is in judicial custody in the foodgrain transportation scam—represented earlier, and in other constituencies are under the government scanner.
The projects under Smart City in Ludhiana, especially in the West assembly segment, include works at Pakhowal over- and under-bridges, Malhar Road, Sidhwan waterfront project and Sarabha Nagar market. An officer of the local bodies department said the chief engineer of the department, who happens to be the department’s chief vigilance officer, might visit Ludhiana soon and scan the smart project details. He added that the officer was likely to go through the status of each project, the contractors executing them and the initial cost and the rise in it, if any, after the tender allotment.
Sources in Ludhiana Smart City Limited said in many projects, there have been issues related to design and delay, besides accusations of inflated cost. They added that there were also allegations of favouritism in the grant of works.
Gurpreet Singh Gogi, MLA from Ludhiana West, said he had brought the alleged wrongdoings in the projects to the notice of the government and the vigilance department. He said they were collecting evidence of corruption. His party colleague Ahbab Grewal, state spokesperson of AAP, indicated that discrepancies in various projects executed during the previous regime would be probed.
A group of activists had also objected to many Smart City projects. Kapil Arora of the Council for Engineers said they had lodged such complaints in January this year.
Arora said, “The Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) under Smart City Mission at Punjab completely failed as they could not appoint citizen forum at local level. The consultants hired by LSCL have no knowledge of IRC Codes and they remained silent on major flaws in smart road as well as RUB Pakhowal Road projects. All such things happen only when some politicians are involved. Almost all the major projects came up in Ashu’s constituency. Besides technical flaws at Malhar Road, there are many blind spots in RUB project and these may lead to head-on collisions.”
Sources said, “In Sarabha Nagar market work, there are issues about design and cost of the project. In Pakhowal railway over- and under-bridge project, there have been issues related to design, delay and revised cost of the project. In Malhar road project, the width of the road has been decreased whereas that of the footpath has been increased. In Sidhwan waterfront project, which won an award recently, the cost of the project is on the higher side.”