Delhi PWD minister threatens errant companies with CVC inquiry

Irked with the tardy progress of work on the installation of streetlights and their lax maintenance, Delhi PWD minister Rajkumar Chauhan has threatened to initiate a CVC inquiry against the three companies entrusted with the work.

Chauhan, on a round of the city on Tuesday with senior PWD officials and representatives of the three companies said he had done some rounds on his own over the last two days and what he had seen was atrocious.

''Lights have not been installed and where they are there, they do not work. The material used is also very poor in some cases. I am now going to refer the tender documents of all three companies to the CVC.''

''The companies haven't come up with a strong reason to explain the delay. We have pulled them up several times and given reminders but they haven't delivered,'' Chauhan said.

The work pertains to illumination of 424 Km of city roads at a cost of Rs198 crore awarded to three companies Bajaj, Cahslek Shedder and Spaceage. While Spaceage is awarded a contract for 152 Km, both Bajaj and Cashlek are responsible for 144 Km each.

Following the inspection yesterday, Chauhan has directed PWD principal secretary KK Sharma to impose heavy penalties on errant companies. Chauhan took the superintendent engineers for all the three zones to task where work is in progress and directed them to ensure that the private companies completed their work to agreed deadlines.