The Hindu : Karnataka / Mangalore News : Official denies charge on quality of pipes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 29, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Mangalore

Official denies charge on quality of pipes

By Our Staff Correspondent

MANGALORE, SEPT. 28. The Deputy Project Director of the Karnataka Urban Development and Coastal Environmental Management Project (KUDEMP), J.R. Lobo, has clarified that the authorities of KUDCEMP implementing the Asian Development Bank-funded underground drainage project in the Mangalore City Corporation limits have not used poor quality pipes in the project.

The former Mayor, K. Diwakar, and Naveen D'Souza and Padmanabha Ameen, councillors, had alleged recently that the authorities were using poor quality pipes for the sewerage project.

Third-party agency

Mr. Lobo told presspersons here today that the authorities had taken steps to identify qualified vendors of stoneware and RCC pipes. The Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) had also authorised Bureau Veritas Industrial Services (India) Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, as the third-party inspection agency to select good manufacturers of stoneware and RCC pipes. Representatives of the agency had personally visited the factories and carried out assessment in all respects, he said. Finally, the vendors had been classified as Category I and Category II and some of them had been rejected, he added.

After going through the assessment report of the agency, the KUIDFC had selected only Category I manufacturers and vendors for supplying stoneware and RCC pipes, he said.

Mr. Lobo said the contractors implementing the sewerage project had requested that they be allowed to buy material from other vendors. But the KUIDFC had rejected it. It had told the contractors that third-party inspection should be carried out by one of the two agencies identified by the KUIDFC.

Visual inspection

He said the KUIDFC had instructed the inspection agency to go in for visual inspection of pipes, though Indian laws specified only sampling inspection.

Mr. Lobo said the KUIDFC had rejected 6,000 pipes received on August 17 following a joint inspection by the authorities of KUDCEMP, representatives of the contractor, and a Chennai-based inspection agency. Earlier, the third-party inspection agency, during its inspection at the factory, rejected the pipes as they were not up to the required standards, he said. Even then, the vendor had sent "defective pipes."

Mr. Lobo said that after noticing this, he convened a meeting of the authorities concerned on September 24 and decided that the pipes received be rejected.

Before accepting the pipes, the third-party inspection agency had been directed to witness five tests including the hydraulic test, the water absorption test, a test for acid resistance, a test for alkali resistance, and crushing strength test. He reiterated that the authorities would ensure that only good pipes were used.

The Executive Engineer of the project, Krishnamurthy, was present.

Later, the authorities took a team of presspersons to Baikampady where the rejected pipes have been stored and to Kavoor to witness the project work and see the pipes used for the project.

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