KIIFB hits back, says has right to review projects

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala infrastructure investment fund board (KIIFB) has gone for a tit for tat with PWD minister G Sudhakaran, who lashed out against its officials on Sunday. Without mentioning anyone, the KIIFB issued a statement on its Facebook page on Monday, which declared that the legislative assembly had passed a law permitting the inspection authority of KIIFB to review projects under it.

Raising serious allegations against PWD, KIIFB stated that it had sent a letter to the department listing around 36 projects, which it was planning to serve stop memo due to failure from the part of PWD in ensuring quality.

Sudhakaran, while inaugurating engineers’ congress, had alleged that chief technical examiner of KIIFB was like ‘Bakan’, the mythical asura in Mahabharata, ready to gulp down proposals submitted by PWD. He also said that KIIFB projects lacked quality and around 12 of them were put on hold.

Clarifying on this, KIIFB had stated that projects approved by it were executed by PWD itself. “Unlike KSTP and city roads improvement projects, where KSTP division and Kerala Road Fund Boards, respectively are SPVs which execute the work, projects approved by KIIFB are executed by the PWD itself. This was cited as the ideal option to strengthen the PWD. A tripartite agreement is signed between PWD secretary, SPV CEO (here KRFB) and KIIFB CEO. KIIFB has constituted a technical resource centre (TRC) to give technical advise to SPVs and department officials,” the Facebook post said.

KIIFB has stated that PWD was not complying with the improvement measures suggested by its inspection team for various works, including the Palode-Karette stretch on Varkala-Ponmudi tourism road. It also stated that the KIIFB had sent a letter to PWD principal secretary informing their plans to give stop memo to 36 works, which lacked quality. It had already given stop memos to 12 other works.

“Following widespread complaints against the construction of Palode-Karette stretch, PWD has referred it to KIIFB. The inspection team of KIIFB found that the construction was not following the design suggested by TRC and KIIFB. Registers mentioning quantity of cement, steel, etc were not available at the work site. The value of raw materials used were incorrect. While 72% of construction needed to be completed, the contractor had covered only 23%. The PWD was directed to make corrective measures and report to the project examiner of KIIFB in seven days. However, it was not followed. KIIFB aims not only to provide funds, but also to ensure quality and timeliness,” the statement said.

Earlier in the assembly, opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala made a dig at finance minister T M Thomas Isaac who heads KIIFB, stating that his own colleagues did not trust him.