Rs 24 crore swindled via ‘project consultancies’
In the last five years, the GHMC has spent Rs 24 crore on consultancy work.
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2015-12-12 07:32 GMT
Hyderabad: In the last five years, the GHMC has spent Rs 24 crore on consultancy work, of which Rs 19 crore was spent on surveying city roads. According to information obtained from a reply to an RTI query, Rs 8 crore was spent in 2010 for road surveys and Rs 12 crore in 2014 for the Strategic Road Development project.
Mr Bontu Sambi Reddy, who filed the RTI query, said, “Crores were spent on engineering consultancy services. Officials in the GHMC hire private consultants to conduct surveys and prepare project reports, the job can be done by engineers.” He said each and every work, big or small, was being assigned as a contract to private agencies. “In the last five years, GHMC has spent Rs 24 crore on consultancy. Rs 2.42 crore was paid to a consultancy for preparing the project report on Rajiv Awas Yojana in slums, whereas the cost of building housing units was Rs 2.65 crore,” he said.
Mr Sambi Reddy said the Prasad Rao Committee had recommended in its report in 2012 that 426 engineers should be recruited. “Till date, the government has not bothered to implement the recommendation,” he said.
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