Four years after the woman
architect at the centre of the alleged illegal snooping row visited Bhavnagar
to seek a stake in a project for a workers' housing colony at Alang ship
recycling yard, the project is all set to begin without her. The Gujarat
Maritime Board (GMB) and Ship Recycling Industries Association of India (SRIA)
are jointly coming up with a residential colony for workers employed in ship
re-cycling industry at Alang-Sosiya yard, the largest ship-breaking yard of the
world, in Bhavnagar. The project involves construction of a three-storey
building with seven dormitory blocks. Each block will have space to accommodate
around 144 persons. In all, the colony will accommodate 1,008 persons, GMB
officers said.
The project is worth Rs 22.8
crore. The tendering was done in June this year. Vadodara-based Kismatrai
Chunilal Patel Construction has been awarded Rs 19 crore-contract for civil
work and related facilities. Similarly, Scarlett Designs, an Ahmedabad-based
design firm, has won the bid for providing architectural design for the project
at approximately Rs 23 lakh.
The woman architect was eyeing
this project during her visit to Bhavnagar in 2009. No new project has come up
at Alang in the last one decade. But GMB officers said that the housing colony
has been under consideration for at least five-seven years.
"The proposal has been there
for many years. But it took final shape only in the last one year. After completing
tendering, we are in the process of issuing work orders," a GMB officer in
Gandhinagar confirmed.
Suspended IAS officer Pradeep
Sharma, who was then posted as Municipal Commissioner of Bhavnagar, said the
woman visited him in May 2009. "She came and told me that she had come
from (state) secretariat and was looking for some projects. I suggested the
restoration project of Mani Mandir in Morbi (then in Rajkot district). But she
said the restoration project would take long time. She wanted some port-related
project, take her money and go away," Sharma told The Indian Express over
phone.
Sharma, who himself was allegedly
target of the same surveillance in August-September 2009, said that the
architect wanted to visit Alang and that he had made transport arrangements for
her. "However, then nothing materialised and no project was
undertaken," Sharma said. Incidentally, Sharma was also in-charge managing
director of Alcock Ashdown (Gujarat ) Limited, a Gujarat government-owned
shipbuilding company having its yards at Bhavnagar port and Chanch in Amreli
district.
The officer and the architect had
come in contact in Bhuj in 2003 during the post-earthquake restoration in the
city. The architect had conceptualised and designed Hill Garden in Bhuj. Sharma
claims he had introduced her to Chief Minister Narendra Modi at a function to
inaugurate the garden in 2004.
Months after her visit to
Bhavnagar, Sharma was arrested by police in January 2010 for alleged corruption
in Bhuj rebuilding projects.
Scarlett Designs said the firm
and the project had nothing to do with the woman architect. "No woman
architect has ever worked with our firm," said Rajesh Valmiki, senior
architect and head of the team working on Alang project.
Source: Indian express. 29 November
2013
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