Pinarayi Vijayan berates well-paid engineers for being greedy

Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has urged public works department engineers to first complete the estimate and plan for a project as tendering is sanctioned without any proper groundwork. 

“Some of you are greedy, even though you get decent salaries,” he said, inaugurating the second annual PWD engineers’ conference here on Saturday.

“Some are obliged to contractors. Though a major section of engineers at the helm have stayed away from corruption, it is not yet at the lower level.”He warned not to tolerate such practices.

Lamenting the inefficiency of the department to complete projects on time, he asked them to tap foreign expertise to build and maintain roads.

He also criticised non-utilisation of funds on time and resultant lag in various projects. He said though the state was receiving funds from NABARD, many projects have not begun. 

He also congratulated the engineers coming up with ‘cold in place’ recycling, where the bitumen on potholed roads would be extracted and reused for the first time.

They used the German technology in Alappuzha district’s Pathirappally-Purakkad stretch. 

He criticised engineers at Ernakulam Government Guest House for the lack of coordination in draining rainwater that submerged its first floor twice 
recently. 

He also distributed awards for the best engineers in six sections among executive engineers, assistant executive engineers and assistant engineers.