State freezes contractor payments, will clear bills after quality review

Kolkata: All pending contractor bills in the state have been frozen and no payments would be cleared until a comprehensive review of project quality is completed, urban development & municipal affairs minister Agnimitra Paul announced on Wednesday, signalling a major crackdown on an alleged "kick-back culture" that has plagued Bengal's infrastructure sector.Speaking in the assembly, Paul said that the new Bengal administration was prioritising durability and transparency over the "hasty and substandard" construction seen in recent years. The minister revealed that the department was inundated with reports of poor workmanship across the state's urban local bodies."We are reviewing these projects because there is a floodgate of complaints of very poor construction," Paul stated. "There are roads where the surfaces wore off just days after completion, and places where the paving is completely undulated. We will not release public funds for such shoddy work. Those bills are officially blocked."Even before the Bengal election, BJP had been consistently alleging that a systemic "cut-money" or kick-back system was hollowing out the state's infrastructure budget. Paul said that under the new govt's zero-tolerance policy, contractors will be held accountable to the terms of their tenders."A lot of projects were not executed correctly," she added. "The contractors must rectify these errors and finish the jobs properly. Only then will the money be released. The people of this state have suffered enough due to corruption-led mismanagement."