The Hindu : New Delhi News : CBI probe into payment for porta cabins demanded

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 16, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

CBI probe into payment for porta cabins demanded

Staff Reporter

`The scheme requires reconsideration'

NEW DELHI: The Leader of the Opposition in the Standing Committee of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Vijender Kumar Gupta, has urged the Lieutenant-Governor, B.L. Joshi, to conduct a CBI inquiry into the payment of Rs. 30 crores for construction of 1,000 porta cabin classrooms in the MCD schools.

In a statement here, Mr. Gupta said the proposed porta cabins being less than what was bargained for would be of little or no utility to the children. "It is unfortunate that despite the MCD Commissioner having ordered installation of porta cabins by June 30, no such thing has happened and an inquiry into the whole affair will only bring out the truth,'' he added.

The requisition sent by the Education Department stated that a porta cabin classroom should have space for accommodating 45 to 56 students. The classroom could also have space for adjustment of teacher's table and chair, left, right, front and backspace to enable movement by students and the teacher. The Department had desired as per their requirement that the porta cabins to be provided should be of 24'x24' size but in the final analysis, the size had been reduced to 20'x24' size.

Alleging that the reduction of size was intentional and was done with a motive to get the less sized porta cabins adjusted in MCD schools, Mr. Gupta claimed these may have been manufactured in excess by the contractors against some other supply order or could not have been marketed for one reason or the other.

"The scheme for providing porta cabin as a substitute to pucca or semi-pucca classrooms in MCD schools requires reconsideration. It is not an economical exercise for the public exchequer in the long run and does not appear suitable from the comfort and security point of view of the students.

The utility period of permanent classrooms is around 50 years and utility period of porta cabins is about 20 years if not shifted or deliberately mutilated. Obviously, these arguments put the whole utility period for porta cabins under a question mark,'' he added. He charged that the policy of providing porta cabin in MCD primary schools had been adopted with the motive to financially benefit some individual or party.

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