Delhi govt suspends 2 engineers for work lapse, cheating

Delhi government today suspended its two engineers for alleged lapses in constructing a drain in Sadar Bazar area in collusion with a contractor, following which the PWD has been directed conduct a detailed inquiry into the case.
According to officials, an Assistant Engineer and a Junior Engineer were suspended by Delhi PWD Minister Satyendra Jain after he conducted a surprise inspection of the Rani Jhansi Marg near Tyre Market in Sadar Bazar area in north Delhi, following complaints of sub-standard construction work.
Officials said the minister found poor quality work in the ongoing construction of a 600 m-long drain. Quality of concrete was not up to the mark, thickness of slabs had been unauthorisedly reduced and spacing of reinforcement had been wrongly increased.

Jain directed suspension of the Assistant Engineer and the Junior Engineer for their "lapses in supervision" of the work and alleged "collusion with the contractor" for cheating the government in execution of a public work.
The Quality Assurance (QA) team of the PWD Department was directed to conduct a detailed inquiry into the case.
The minister directed repatriation of the Superintending Engineer responsible for this area, back to the CPWD. He was informed that the Executive Engineer had already been transferred by the department.

"Jain directed the Quality Assurance (QA) team of the department to conduct a detailed inquiry to establish the extent of dereliction of the officials named and their alleged involvement in the lapses found in the execution of this work.

"It was noticed during the inspection that a slab of the drain had been wrongly demolished, spacing of reinforcement was 200 mm against the approved design spacing of 125mm. The thickness of the slab was around 100 mm as against the design thickness of 150 mm," a senior official said.
Officials claimed that the quality of concrete was also not up to the mark, since the concrete broke on slight hammering despite the concrete slab resting on sandstone slabs.