A day after it came to light that a procedural lapse occurred in floating of tender for road works worth Rs 200 crore, the Road Construction Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh today said that all these projects will be regularised to ensure their speedy construction.
A procedural lapse had taken place in floating tender for road projects worth Rs. 200 crore by the road construction department without obtaining administrative approval for the same, he told PTI.
However, given the necessity of these road projects and keeping public interest in mind, it has been decided to regularise these projects, Singh said.
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He flatly denied that any scam or irregularity has taken place in the floating of tender for the road projects as no money was released or paid to anyone.
The Road Construction Minister, at the same time, defended the officials responsible for floating tenders of the road projects without obtaining administrative approval and said that they gave technical sanction for the projects in view of necessity of the Major District Roads (MDR) before floating of tenders for the same.
Singh said that he will grant administrative approval for these road projects to fast track construction works given its necessity and public interest involved.
He said that as per a decision taken by the erstwhile Nitish Kumar government, the Minister has power to give administrative order for projects up to certain limit of estimated expenditure and these road projects fell under that limit.
Meanwhile, the former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi questioned the manner in which the tender for road projects was floated and asked the Road Construction Minister to explain the lapse and fix accountablity on those officials on whose order tenders were floated.
