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| Complaints galore about variations in weight, faulty pipes | | PHE under scanner | | Ishtiyaq Ahmad
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Mar 14: The Public Health Engineering department has come under the scanner as there are complaints about procurement of pipes with defaults and variations in their weight.
Official sources said that there are often complaints about procurement of pipes with defaults and variations in their weight from the contractors. "Even complaints have also gone to state vigilance organization for the probe," an official said.
The official said that complaints about defaults and variations in their weight of pipes come from across the state. "There shall be a probe about pipes purchased in the last five years," the official said. There are hundreds of non-completion of PHE schemes on which the work has been going for years, thus forcing people to fetch water from streams and other contaminated sources.
However, according to official sources, the PHE department has purchased water pipes meant for various schemes over the years.
"In 2016, after some of the officials found defaults in pipes which were meant for various water supply schemes, we brought the issue into the notice of higher authorities. These pipes were purchased from dealers over Rs 6 crores and we don't know what happened after," an official of PHE department said, wishing not to be quoted by name.
The official said this was not the first time when the PHE department had procured defective pipes. "No action was taken against the officials who facilitate these default pipes in the past and authorities had hushed up the matter," he said. Sources said the authorities didn't return these pipes to dealers and had used these pipes for various schemes.
"Action must be taken against those engineers who had approved these pipes over the years and having variations in weight."
In Valley, sources said the water pipes don't exist for longer due to usage of water pipes having poor quality.
"It is because of usage of substandard pipes that they don't sustain the cold weather of Kashmir." Sources said hundreds of water supply got affected by the September 2014 floods and government had purchased some of these pipes to replace damaged pipes with these new ones.
In JK, around 40 percent do not have the access of tap water and water in some areas is being supplied through water tanks while in some areas people fetch water from streams and rivers without being filtered. "These pipes were also procured to provide tap water in these areas," an official said.
A senior official of PHE admitted there were variations in weight in these pipes. "There may be variations of 3 to 4 percent in weight," he said. "There is now less variation in weight this year than the previous years. It is not a big issue as there are always chances in variations of the weight," he added. |
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