The failure of a consultant appointed to prepare a report of setting up a hydro power project has once again come to haunt the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), as it stands to lose one of its ambitious projects and also a whopping fee of Rs 60 lakh it has spent on them.
With the consultant not being successful in getting permission from the state government, the BMC has finally all but scrapped its ambitious plan of setting up hydropower project at the newly built Middle Vaitarana dam. In the process, it will also have to forgo the Rs 60 lakh fee it has spent on the consultant.
According to the civic officials, the BMC had appointed M/s Trigon Consultants to prepare a feasibility report for the project and implement it accordingly. The consultants were asked to carry out geological and technical survey, prepare financial feasibility report, seek permission from the government and to monitor the project works.
While the consultants carried out the first two tasks successfully, it failed to get a go-ahead by the government, which in turn awarded the work to a private company M/s Mahalaxmi Konal Urja Pvt Ltd in 2011. Despite making efforts, the consultants have failed to make the government change its mind and bring the project back to the BMC.
A senior civic official said, “We are helpless as the state government has spurned our demand to set up a hydro power project on the Middle Vaitarana dam.”
The BMC had completed construction of the 102.4-metre-high Middle Vaitarna Dam in record time. Water from the down stream of the dam is to be used to generate 25 MW of electricity, which could be sold.
Civic standing committee chairman Shailesh Phanse said, “BMC has spent Rs 60 lakh on the consultant and we will demand a refund.”
However, opposition leader Devendra Amberkar slammed the civic administration for going ahead with the project without the government’s nod. “They should have first sought permission and then proceeded with the project works. It is a sheer loss of public money and it smacks of conspiracy behind this.”
