The proposed township in Uppal for farmers whose land were acquired for the Metro Rail project looks set to be delayed further, as the finance department has sought certain clarification on the project cost. The department, sources said, are trying to rule out the possibility of any scam in the process of handing over the project to contractors. While the government decided nearly two years to develop the township and allot a plot of 1,000 square yards against each acre lost, work is still far from the starting block.
Of 500 acres acquired from farmers, the township is proposed to be built on about 350 acres, with 104 acres allotted to Metro for its railway depot and 150 acres for the Water Board. Though the Hyderabad Metropolitan Develop-ment Authority, the executing agency for the project, called for tenders and four companies submitted their bids, it could not move forward since an administrative sanction from the government is still awaited, a senior HMDA official said.
Sources told this newspaper that companies which bid for constructing the township project quoted 15 per cent to 18 per cent less than the project cost of Rs 145 crore, eliciting suspicion among finance department officials. The finance department is learnt to have asked how HMDA arrived at the project cost and various components involved in it. The department, sources said, wanted to ascertain and rule out that the project cost was escalated by 15-18 per cent, and the companies subsequently under-quoted by that much. In such a scenario, the contractor winning the bid eventually will make a windfall, the sources added.