Govt probing how cost of secretariat doubled in 4 years

Govt probing how cost of secretariat doubled in 4 years

Koride.Mahesh@timesofindia.com 19.10.2024

Hyderabad : With allegations of abnormal increase in cost and inferior quality of work doing the rounds, the vigilance and enforcement (V&E) department has now begun a probe into the new secretariat's construction. The state govt, which is already investigating various projects and decisions taken by the previous BRS govt, entrusted the secretariat probe to V&E department last month. It was in 2019 that the BRS govt decided to construct a new secretariat in place of the old one and sanctioned Rs 617 crore. The contract was eventually awarded to Shapoorji Pallonji Group in a competitive bidding process for Rs 494 crore, much less than the sanctioned cost. 

But by the time the project was completed in April 2023, the cost had touched around Rs 1,100 crore as per the estimate of roads and buildings (R&B) department which supervised the construction Moreover, even after one and a half years since the inauguration, the R&B department has not finalised the total expenditure incurred by the govt, including for furniture and other additional expenses, except for computer peripherals. 

Missing files on secretariat construction raise suspicion 

Also, many files related to the construction are missing from the R&B department, raising suspicion about the role of some officers. An officer, who worked for several years after retirement and played a crucial role in secretariat construction, was removed from the department two months ago. “The department officials claim the cost of construction increased due to rise in material costs after Covid-19. But generally cost escalation of any project will be 10% to 20%. In this case, it is more than double. If the cost escalates more than 10%, the department must send the file for cabinet clearance. But it was not done,” a senior R&B official said.

 There are also allegations about the quality of construction. There are leakages in the buildings and the department is struggling to plug them, sources said. Many officers have also complained to the R&B department that within one year of construction they have been facing issues related to electric, plumbing and other problems. Officers said ACs and other material procured by the R&B department were of inferior quality and no tender system was followed. The officers are now finding it difficult to gather information as the files were handled by a couple of R&B officials and directly sent to the CM without following any proper channel. For similar reasons of cost escalation, CM A Revanth Reddy had earlier ordered a probe by V&E wing into the construction of a superspeciality hospital in Warangal in Aug this year. The initial estimation for the hospital was ₹1,100 crore which was later revised to ₹1,726 crore. The probing agency is also collecting details of four hospitals being constructed in four corners of the city.