May 20 (Punjab Khabarnama) : Despite spending about Rs 58 crore on the replacement of old sodium street lights in Jalandhar city and installing more than 71 thousand new LED street lights, today half of Jalandhar city is immersed in darkness. Despite this project of Smart City, there has been no improvement in the street light system of the city due to which it is believed that the biggest scam of Smart City is L.E.D. Happened in the street light project only. There is so much scam in this project that now no officer sitting in Smart City Jalandhar is ready to touch the files of this project, due to which now the entire bundle has been sent to Chandigarh to the Punjab Government. The further work will be carried out according to the orders that will come to the Smart City regarding this project from there.
It is worth noting that under this Smart City project, the old lights were replaced, but no official monitored this project and the company also did the work of replacing only the lights in a very indigenous manner, due to which representatives of all political parties. In L.E.D. There was widespread anger against the company. The Punjab government had also conducted a third party audit of this smart city project during which many irregularities were found. That report and the recent CAG report have also been referred to the Punjab government.
Some examples of project errors
- The company has not completed the project but smart city officials have started paying it for maintenance.
- The company worked in a very indigenous manner. Do not apply clumps at many places.
- For a long time the system was not fully ‘earthed’ even though it was included in the contract.
- Around 30 thousand additional lights were installed but their approval was not taken from the State Level Committee sitting in Chandigarh.
- The old lights were handed over to a contractor who did not even have a tender.
- Smart City made unnecessary payment to the company, which the government is now demanding back with interest.
- The conditions of the tender were directly violated by installing low watt lights in the villages.
Even Vigilance probably doesn’t understand
led. The street light project has been in controversy since the beginning. Apart from one MLA, the remaining three MLAs, mayor and councilors never liked this project or the functioning of the company from the Congress government.
The entire councilor house of the corporation had criticized this project and recommended investigation by vigilance. The AAP government of Punjab has entrusted the work of investigation of this project to Jalandhar Vigilance Bureau. Vigilance has not done anything in this matter till now, which seems that perhaps the officials are not understanding the scam. It is believed that this project may go to the courts in the coming days.