Mayor Orders Third-party Audit, Crackdown On Bogus Contractors | Nagpur News

Nagpur: Mounting complaints over poor-quality civic works have triggered a major review within the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), with Mayor Neeta Thakre directing the administration to conduct third-party audits of at least 10% of all development works executed by contractors across the city.The directive came during a high-level meeting on the civic body’s tendering system and execution of infrastructure projects held at the NMC headquarters on Tuesday. The meeting was attended by deputy mayor Leela Hathibed, standing committee chairperson Shivani Dani Wakhare, ruling party leader Narendra Borkar and municipal commissioner Vipin Itankar, along with senior engineers and contractor association representatives.Citing repeated complaints regarding the quality of ongoing civic works, the mayor instructed the administration to appoint reputed independent institutions such as Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay or College of Engineering Pune to inspect works including cement roads, sewerage lines, paver blocks, drainage systems and other infrastructure projects.The move assumes significance as the NMC is currently executing hundreds of crores worth of infrastructure projects, including large-scale cement road construction across the city. Questions have repeatedly been raised by corporators and citizens over the durability and execution standards of several projects.The mayor also pushed for greater transparency in the tendering process and asked the administration to operationalise a “work module” system aimed at digitally tracking projects, approvals and execution timelines. She further suggested increasing the security deposit amount collected from contractors to ensure accountability and timely completion of works.During the meeting, Borkar recalled that between 2010 and 2017, tenders quoted below estimated rates were subjected to detailed scrutiny by the standing committee. He demanded revival of similar checks and called for penalties against contractors failing to complete projects within stipulated deadlines.Municipal commissioner Vipin Itankar announced that the civic body would appoint a national-level agency for quality inspections and establish a dedicated quality-testing laboratory for civic projects. He also revealed that complaints surfaced regarding contractors allegedly submitting fake certificates to secure NMC contracts. The commissioner directed officials to immediately register FIRs against such contractors and inform the concerned municipal bodies whose documents were allegedly forged.Standing committee chairperson Dani Wakhare also stressed the need for a transparent and technology-driven tender process to prevent manipulation and improve accountability.INFOBOXKEY DECISIONS TAKEN BY NMCThird-party audit of minimum 10% civic worksIIT-Bombay/COEP likely to inspect projectsQuality checks for roads, drains, paver blocks and gutter linesSeparate NMC quality-testing lab to be established“Work module” system proposed for transparent tender tracking; security deposits of contractors may be increasedFIRs ordered against contractors using fake certificatesPenalty proposal for delayed civic works under consideration