Citing that the road gullies be cleaned from July 15 to October 31, the engineering wing also seems to go in for “re-cleaning” the gullies near tourist places.
Monsoon WAS fast approaching Chandigarh when the administration started floating most of taxpayers’ money worth more than Rs 60 lakh for back-to-back tenders for cleaning road gullies.
On Tuesday – which marked the arrival of monsoon in Chandigarh – residents were inconvenienced due to knee-deep water-logging despite claims by the civic body of cleaning the road gullies well in advance. A day later, the Chandigarh engineering wing floated back-to-back tenders for cleaning road gullies in various belts of the city. Road gullies are part of the drainage system, and designed to collect water from roads to prevent them from flooding.
The Municipal Corporation Chandigarh had already claimed of spending over Rs 1.35 crore for monsoon preparedness.
UT Chief Engineer CB Ojha said that tenders of cleaning previous gullies were almost over and this was the next shift of cleaning. “This cleaning is a continuous process. We did cleaning of the road gullies earlier as well before the monsoon. But tenders to several places were getting over, so we have floated them again since cleaning has to carry continuously,” Ojha said.
The engineering wing also floated a tender worth Rs 6.96 lakh for cleaning road gullies and other allied works from Junction Number 54 to Junction Number 57, Paryas Building, SPCA, Sector 38, etc for a period of four months. They also floated similar works from Junction Number 33 to Junction Number 30 up to Mullanpur Barrier and Junction Number 23 to Junction Number 30 for the period of four months, at a cost of Rs 6.97 lakh.
The engineering wing went ahead with the cleaning road gullies of Vikas Marg (Sector 54,55,56, 56 (west) side) and various, NRB (i.e Dispensary, Schools, Snehalaya, R.H.T.C Building etc.) at Rs 4.66 lakh and Mullanpur Barrier at Rs 5.81 lakh.
Citing that the road gullies be cleaned from July 15 to October 31, the engineering wing also seems to go in for “re-cleaning” the gullies near tourist places.
Cleaning of existing road gullies at Rock Garden Lake Sports Club and Jogging Track at Sukhna Lake, and Sports Complex at Sector 7, ( for period of July 15 to October 10 at Rs 4.12 lakh and similar work at various non residential buildings (Bus Stand at Sector 17, Old District Court at Sector 17, RLA 17, State Library 17, Underpass 17) at 6.14 lakh, and near UT Guest House Sector 6 at Rs 6.17 lakh, have been tendered out only on July 3.
According to the details, the work of giving out the cleaning of road gullies at various non residential buildings, i.e., CLTA, Skating Ring, Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 10, Children Traffic Park-23, Yoga Centre-23, Bal Bhawan-23, Working Women Hostel, GMSS Sector 22A, GMSS, at Rs 6.17 lakh have also been given.
A few more tenders of similar amounts have also floated.
Interestingly, the same work at Punjab and Haryana Raj Bhawan for Rs 6.17 lakh has also been tendered out only on July 1.
On June 28, the work of cleaning the gullies at Housing Board Light Point up to Panchkula Sector 7 and 18 U.T. Boundary, Railway Light Point to IT Park Ram Bhag Nursery Light Point and, Railway Light Point to village Daria, was also given at Rs 4.12 lakh. Similarly, the other main route which sees heavy traffic too will see road gully cleaning happening only post July 15, the work of which has been given for Rs 4.12 lakh. This is the route from Purv Marg Transport Chowk to Tribune Road.
Interestingly, the cleaning of gullies at Uttar Marg Sector-3 to Garden of Silence at Sukhna Lake are also to take place at the same cost.
Short-term tenders
Short term tenders of up to five days have been floated in these works because the monsoon have already hit the city and the Chandigarh Administration is yet to clean the road gullies. However, Chief engineer CB Ojha insists that the administration is cleaning the gullies again.