Check dams open gates for money-making rackets

Contractors out to hoodwink government

Vikarabad: The Government move to construct check dams to recharge the depleted groundwater levels has become a boon to the contractors. Many a contractor has been just replacing an old check dam with a new check dam and show that a new check dam is constructed.

The Government has released Rs. 72 lakh from Rural Infrastructure Development Fund under rural employment guarantee scheme to undertake construction of check dams and Continue Contour Trenches (CCT) works in Vikarabad mandal. Rs. 18 lakh has been earmarked for each of the Kamareddiguda, Erravalli, Pendlimadugu, and Pulumaddi villages.

The construction work of check dam and CCT has to be entrusted to the persons recommended by the watershed committees of respective villages. The technical assistant of the village would select the site where check dam or CCT has to be constructed. After completing the construction the technical assistant would complete the estimation to get the bills sanctioned.

Three check dams in Erravelli and one in Kamareddiguda and four in Pulumaddi were completed. Two more check dams were under construction in Erravelli village where the contractor had started construction of a check dam after demolishing the old check dam totally ignoring the recommendation of the village technical assistant. Moreover, the contractor is using the stones and other material from the demolished check dam.

The villagers demand that the officials concerned should immediately respond to take action against the contractor who removed the old check dam for constructing the new one and a new check dam should be constructed at the place selected by the village technical assistant.

Technical assistant Anjaiah said that the contractor did not undertake construction of the new check dam at the place he suggested. "The contractor removed the old check dam when I was hospitalized and started new dam construction in the same place," he added. He said that he had taken up the matter to the notice of higher officials.

Assistant project manager Ramesh said that it was a crime to demolish the old check dam and construct new one. "If the old check dam needed repairs, there was another scheme to undertake repairs with the permission of the project director," he said. Ramesh warned the contractors that if the construction was below quality parameters, money would be recovered from them.