Civic body made payment for road resurfacing without bill

The audit department of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has pointed towards serious financial irregularities in the engineering department. The engineering department in new west zone made payment for material that was not used at all.
Moreover, it also made payment despite the fact that the contractor could not produce bills or invoice of material purchased.

The audit department has pointed out financial irregularities of more than Rs18 crore in road resurfacing projects in five different wards of new west zone. The department has pointed out that in a road widening and resurfacing project from Sarkhej overbridge to Fatehwadi Approach, the engineering department made payment for 25.7 metric tonne; this when the bill showed purchase of just 12.9 metric tonne. This is just one of the many such incidents that have been highlighted by the audit department.

For example, the contractor purchased 14.720 metric tonne bitumen from Essar on January 23, 2010, with bill no 210046. But the measurement book record shows that the department paid for 38.282 metric tonne bitumen on the same bill.

It shows that one bill was produced to get price variation at many places, indicating at clear case of financial irregularities and lack of proper monitoring system or even corruption, believe sources in AMC’s audit department.

The department has also pointed out that as per the tender terms and conditions, the contractor was eligible to get price variation on bitumen used for road resurfacing in Sarkhej and Vejapur ward in 2009-10 only if he used bitumen bought from HPCL, BPCL and IOCL. However, he was given price variation despite the fact he had made the purchase from Essar.

It has also come to notice that the engineering department paid an excess of Rs20 lakh to the contractor as it did not deduct retention money from the final bill.