‘Madras University wasted Rs 23 crore as new building remain incomplete’

After spending Rs 22.29 crore on the project, the building is still incomplete without any progress in the past 31 months. A recent Comptroller and Audit General (CAG) report said the university approached the government for a one time grant to complete the building, but the authorities did not approve the proposal.

The University of Madras decided to construct a modern multi-storeyed building in 2010 with indoor auditorium, conference halls, laboratories and workshop facilities to help scientific research and to overcome the problem of water logging in the existing main building.

Accordingly, after floating a tender, the contract was awarded to a company in December 2012 for an agreement value of Rs 35.90 crore. The work site was handed over to the contractor in the same month with scheduled completion of the project by March 2015.

The contractor commenced the work immediately and presented bills for the work done from January 2013 onwards. The University’s syndicate had approved a procedure for expeditious payment of contractor’s bills, wherein payments had to be made within five days from the date of approval.

However, scrutiny of the bills revealed that the bills were paid with delays ranging from 15 to 907 days. The University replied to the audit team that contractor’s bills could not be paid due to paucity of funds. As a result, after completing 68 per cent of the work, the contractor stopped the work in December 2014 due to non-payment of outstanding bills to the tune of Rs 6.44 crore.

“As of July 2017, after an expenditure of Rs 22.79 crore on the project, the building stood incomplete without any progress for the last 31 months,” the CAG report pointed out.

The university approached the Tamil Nadu government for a one time grant to complete the building, but the authorities did not approve the proposal of the university.