This is for those who have no faith in NGOs/watchdogs. A group of engineers have created this watchdog to keeps tabs on Govt. projects.
"The forum will submit the findings with suggestions to all the legislatures, leading citizens and media houses to create awareness on what is happening, why and what needs to be done to make the city habitable. These will also figure in a bi-monthly bulletin it plans to publish from next month. " I am upbeat, there are people in Assam who ARE taking steps to better their lives. Engineers to keep tabs on govt projects A STAFF REPORTER The Panbazar water treatment plant. Picture by Eastern Projections April 25: Guwahati has got a new watchdog in a forum floated by engineers above 50. The voluntary organisation, formed early this month, will keep tabs on government projects conceived to develop civic amenities and help in successful implementation of infrastructure facilities in Greater Guwahati. Led by its president P.N. Pathak, the forum will next month urge chief minister Tarun Gogoi to direct all government departments to share with it information about existing and future projects and get its approval before implementing them. The forum attributed the city's woes to faulty design and planning of drains, water supply schemes and roads. The main problem with the planning, its members said, is that the right man is not in the right post. It has formed a four-member think tank to survey roads, drains, water supply and waste disposal methods. They are former PWD chief engineers S. Chakravarthy (who is also the convener) and D.C. Borah, consultant to the four-lane national highway K.L. Das and chief executive of Consulting Engineering Services G. Bardaloi. The forum's secretary is B.C. Bordoloi, former managing director of Assam Small Minor Irrigation Development Corporation. The forum will submit the findings with suggestions to all the legislatures, leading citizens and media houses to create awareness on what is happening, why and what needs to be done to make the city habitable. These will also figure in a bi-monthly bulletin it plans to publish from next month. "Crores of rupees have been wasted on drainage, water supply, flood control, roads and bridges schemes due to lack of proper planning, design, engineering, construction, quality control and monitoring. We will try to reverse the trend by co-operating with the executing agencies. We will highlight the defects and suggest ways of improvement. We will try to convince the authorities to share the details of the projects. However, if we don't get the required co-operation we will adopt a positive attitude," Pathak said. He said the Panbazar water supply scheme, executed in 1962, is obsolete. "The scheme was executed when I was with the public health engineering department. Its life span was 25 years. They have carried out modifications, but I have heard it is faulty. These things need to be looked into before it is too late." _______________________________________________ Assam mailing list [email protected] http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam Mailing list FAQ: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/assam/assam-faq.html To unsubscribe or change options: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam
