Fix responsibility for delays in execution, completion of bridge work: Parl panel to Rlys

A parliamentary standing committee has said that the railways has failed to fix accountability against the officers for procuring equipments at exorbitant rates and underutilising them resulting in delay in timely repair of bridges.

The Lok Sabha Public Accounts Committee on Maintenance of Bridges in Indian Railways, headed by Subhash Chandra Baheria has said that the panel in its earlier report had noted that 290 equipments of five types had been procured at a cost of Rs 12.99 crore by different zones on the recommendations of the high level safety review committee but their utilisation was barely only 7.07 per cent.

Railways in its reply has conceded that it had been advised from time to time in various forums to use them more frequently.

"The Committee find that the action taken note is conspicuously silent on the issue of fixing accountability against the officers of the Indian Railways for procuring equipments at exorbitant rates as the same are lying underutilised.

"Since the under utilisation of the equipments defeating the purpose of timely strengthening of bridges, the committee reiterate their earlier recommendation and would like to be apprised of the action taken against the officers responsible in the matter," the panel said.

The committee has also said that 710 bridges remained to be completed as on March 2014 even after expiry of timelines. It also noted that the bridge management system was yet to be commissioned even after a lapse of 11 years.

It also recommended that monitoring committees should be set up by railway board at every zonal railways for strict monitoring of all projects.

"They should also fix responsibility for unreasonable and unexplained delays in execution/completion of the projects," the panel said.