By: Dr. Siddhartha Ghosh,

Srinagar Sept 25: Evidence of bad public works is all around almost anywhere in Jammu & Kashmir. A newly constructed drain that has been leaking since its construction. Broken tiles on the lane.

A small wall that supported a neighbouring plot that has been damaged and collapsed. These are all small but persistent problems of the public. When put together, they point to large and serious issues with public works in Jammu & Kashmir that need systematic attention.

When the public tries to draw attention to poorly executed works, it is easy for discussions to deviate and focus on perceived corruption. That is also an important discussion to have, but may not be the most pressing of the issues. The more pressing concern is the gradual deterioration of public works from executing public works at extremely low rates. Poorly constructed drains can damage private property and may put people in danger. A weak wall can seriously injure someone. The concerns then move from losing public money to the safety and security of the general public.

The Arithmetic of the Discount

A significant amount of the public purse goes towards local development. Local MLA constituency development funds, MPLADS recommendations, and other government programs sponsor the construction of local access roads, lanes, drains, retaining walls, and other community infrastructure. Most of the development programs are relatively small. A media and senior official focus are on the construction of a highway. However, a drain in a less visible ward of Srinagar will get little to no mention, if any at all. Thousands of such projects that cost a few lakhs of rupees combine into hundreds of crores. Even if a small number of these projects compromise on delivery quality, the financial and physical loss can be significant.
It is estimated that cost for construction of a lane and drain in Magray Mohalla, Noor Bagh must have been around Rs. 1.11 lakhs, and the lowest cost bid was approximately 28.7% below the estimate. For the reconstruction of a lane and drain at Kalai Doori, Naid Kadal (Ward 42) the published value was around Rs. 5.30 lakhs, and the lowest cost bid was approximately Rs. 3.30 lakhs or a reduction of nearly 37.7%.
Large discounts would be of interest even if they simply demonstrated competitive construction bidding. Departmental estimates may be low, and some contractors may have several cost or time saving advantages. However, large discounts of the nature described warrant an explanation. When an estimate is Rs. 5.30 Lakhs, and someone is willing to do the work for Rs. 3.30 lakhs, the public deserves transparency in how the savings will be used.
Let’s say there’s a job with an estimated valuation of ?10 lakh that was awarded at a 40 percent discount. Now, the contractor has ?6 lakh to deliver something that was initially estimated to cost ?10 lakh. This estimate was already considering the cost of materials, transport, and even provisions for taxes, overheads, and risk. Resulting in a thin margin of profit, even with all cost-cutting measures. Some of this gap may very well be explained. Some of it may be absorbed in ways the public will never see. This may mean using a thinner layer of concrete, poorer quality aggregate, compacting the base with less effort, using thinner tiles, less reinforcement, or less excavation. These are not cosmetic shortcuts. These decisions impact the longevity of a road and threaten the vary fact if a wall can safely stand for a number of years.

Where Accountability Slips Away
The evaluation of any such bid is important, but the risk likely lies after the bid is awarded. The process begins with the bid and continues through performance, measurement, quality control, payment and closing. A low bid can be justified if the department ensures quantities and specifications are verified at each step. If measurements are done carelessly, inspections are performed as a matter of routine and a quality test is completed as a form-filling exercise, then all these safeguards become meaningless.
It is critical to control the sequence of the work. After a drain is covered, no one can see what is below it.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp ChannelAfter a lane is paved or a wall is plastered, one cannot check whether proper foundation and compaction have been done. For this reason, quality control must be performed at each stage of the construction work, and not after the inaugural ceremony.
There are two other features of the system that may allow these problems to be ignored. Small works fail silently. Although, a collapse of a bridge may be front page news, failure of a drain or a wall of a graveyard that falls may be discussed locally for a few days and then repaired without anyone questioning why it failed. Responsibility is also fragmented into different components. There may be different people who provided the funds, provided the technical approval, carried out the work, controlled the measurement, and gained the political merit for the work. When responsibility is so widely distributed, it is easily ignored. The citizens do not have access to any of the things mentioned above, and what they see is only the completed surface, which may cover a wide range of problems.

The Case for an Evidence-Based Audit
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), Jammu & Kashmir, might take a valuable first step by randomly examining projects carried out in any region of the Union Territory in the last two years. An unannounced sample of projects is always a better indicator than whistle blowing. It’s very possible that, through such an inspection, it may be revealed that 70 to 80 percent of the projects funded under various welfare and employment programs may be substandard. Substandard works, ultimately, leads to not just loss of public money but life as well. Infrastructure, constructed using public money, should be of good quality, and constructed in such a way that it need not be repaired soon after it is constructed.
A careful analysis should be performed using available data rather than more casting of blame. Such an analysis could review a selection of projects that were undertaken in Srinagar and other districts within the last two years. The analysis would include the funding source and the amount sanctioned, the estimated cost, the number of tenders that were submitted, the winning tender, and the value of the contract and the contracted firm and engineers. It would include measurement and quality control documents, the completion certificate, and finally the present condition and state of the constructed facility.
The main issue to be answered by the analysis is whether excessive discounting correlates with failure of the constructed facility. Do projects tendered at 5% or 10% below the estimated cost result in constructed facility failure at a different rate than the failure of a constructed facility that is tendered at 30-40% below the estimated cost? Do the same firms consistently win tenders that are awarded below the estimated cost, and do these constructed facilities experience failure at a high rate? If constructed facilities that have been tendered at very large discounts are shown to result in crumbling walls and leaking drains, then the concern becomes fact rather than a presumption.
This analysis should be fair, and no elected representative, contractor, or engineer should be deemed to be guilty or be off limits to criticism. The main case to be made is that there is a serious lack of accountability and transparency which, although all the documents pertaining to a given construction tender are public, can result in the construction of facilities that deteriorate and fail shortly after completion.
The government is faced with a fundamental question. What entity verifies that contracts estimated to cost ?10 lakh are given for ?6 or ?7 lakh and that all specifications have been satisfied? Each and every failed drain and collapsed wall should similarly prompt the government to investigate who cooked the books to build and measure these and who signed off on the work. The people of Jammu & Kashmir require infrastructure of the utmost quality and deserve to comprehend if the race to offer the lowest bid is in actuality imposing the highest cost on them.(KNS)

The views expressed in the article are author's own.

By: Dr. Siddhartha Ghosh,
Director,
Red Lantern Analytica Foundation