Margao: The Shadow Council for Margao today demanded that stringent action be taken on the Contactor involved in execution of substandard work for the construction of the Nallah along the Eastern bypass road, near Gujarati Samaj School.
At a press conference held today SCM informed that through the water resources department, a work of *”Improvement and development of existing nallah along Eastern bypass from Gujarati Samaj school to Supreme Park at Aquem Margao”* is in progress.
Having been informed by concerned citizens from Margao that the execution of the said work is done by using low quality materials and of very substandard nature, the SCM started monitoring and verifying the execution of the work.
Having confirmed the substandard nature, on 27th February 2020, the SCM exposed the same and stopped the said work. “The concerned engineers were called to the site and cube samples of the concrete mix were collected. While 2 samples were collected in the presence of SCM members, the 3rd sample was collected subsequently”, Mr. Coutinho stated.
On the completion of 7 day’s, the cube samples were subjected to strength tests on 5/3/20, at the WRD quality control laboratory at Gogol Margao. “The cube samples collected in our presence gave compression strength reading to the level of 57.77kg/cm2 and 66.66kg/cm2 , which is far less than the required strength of 140kg/cm2 for a concrete mix of 1:2:4 proportion. Even the 3rd cube sample fell short of the required strength and achieved a reading of 124.44kg/cm2”, SCM Convener Mr. Savio Coutinho informed.
*Having confirmed that the work executed is of poor quality the department should order a probe into the entire work and stringent action should be taken against the Contractor*, SCM demanded.
Another aspect in this issue is the *unauthorized use of poor quality material like black Metal dust/powder in place of river sand*. All over the state we see that the government engaged Contractor’s use black Metal dust/powder in place of river sand due to it’s non availability. While the authorities are seen going hammer and tongs against illegal sand mining, thereby *making general public to purchase sand at unaffordable prices*; but on the other hand turn a blind eye to the use of poor quality material like black Metal dust/powder by government contractors. Here we wish to question the government as to why the policy for legal sand extraction activities getting delayed? Further, we suggest that till river sand is not available as per the GSR rates, *the government departments should stop tendering and execution of cement concrete related projects, the purpose of which gets defeated due to poor quality work*.
Every citizen of this state is well aware of the conditions that result in poor quality and substandard work. And for this reason we appeal to all Goans to be vigilant over the quality of work executed in your vicinity. *Exposing poor quality work and stringent action against defaulting contractor’s shall automatically do away with the % related factors that effect the quality* of tendered works.
Further we wish to advise the Contractor’s that they should, by all means avoid resorting to unfair means of bagging contracts. *We know of several Goan Contractor’s who have Sincerely executed quality work* without resorting to unfair means of bagging contracts.
The situation in Goa with respect to public works is going from bad to worse with the % conditions getting higher and higher. And if this continues, *we will soon achieve the distinction(as in other states) of having 100% bills paid for zero % work executed*, SCM apprehended.
The press conference was attended and addressed by Radha Kavlekar, Laurel Abranches, Jose Maria Miranda, Lenny Rosario, Sameer Gaonkar, Dominic Coutinho and Iftiyaz Sayed.
