Hyderabad: HMWSSB favoured contractor unduly

Khairatabad: The Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) on Friday found a non-enforcement of contractual provisions by the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) resulting in undue favour of Rs 1.05 crore to a contractor.

The CAG report stated that the Telangana government accorded administrative approval and technical sanction in February 2015 for Rs 58.96 crore for construction of a 'ring sewer main' to divert sewage from the Kukatpally Nala to prevent it from flowing downstream of Hussainsagar lake.

In April the works were divided into four packages and entrusted to two agencies (agency 1: package-I (Rs 7.23 crore), package-III (Rs 7.80 crore); agency 2: package-II (Rs 7.87 crore) and package-IV (Rs 4.82 crore). The report stated that as against the scheduled date of completion of October 2015, the work was completed in April 2016.

During joint inspection on July 2016 conducted by HMWSSB with the Transco authorities, the board requested the latter to carry out necessary repairs and offered to pay expenses. The repairs were done by Transco and a claim of Rs 1.05 crore was levied towards damage charges.

The water board paid Rs 1.05 crore (during December 2015 to July 2017) to Transco towards rectification work for the damaged UG cable at the Necklace Road. It did not, however, invoke the contractual clauses to recover this amount from the contractor.

However, in response to an audit query about reasons for the non-recovery of expenditure for damages from the contractor, HMWSSB stated in April 2018 that the damages were not due to negligence of the contractor, but rather due to narrow space for the execution of work and loose nature of soil, which triggered extensive collapse beyond the width of the trench damaging the adjacent power cables. The board confirmed in November 2019 that it had not recovered the amount of Rs.1.05 crore paid to Transco from the contractor.

The reply is contrary to the contractual conditions which clearly stipulate that the responsibility of protection of utilities rests with the contractor. Any damage to any utility resulting from the contractor's operations shall be repaired at the contractor's expense, said CAG.

The justification put forth by the HMWSSB, that narrow space for the execution of work and loose nature of the soil triggered extensive collapses beyond the width of the trench damaging the adjacent power cables and that it was not due to negligence of the contractor is only an attempt to exonerate the contractor and not enforcing contractual conditions, which amounts to extending undue favour to the contractor.

The matter was reported to the government in February 2020; the reply is awaited (September 2020), the CAG report added.