LARKANA, Nov 3: The fate of a major drainage project being executed at a cost of Rs191.680 million hangs in the balance. Work on the project was stopped four months ago after a row between the Larkana taluka municipal administration and the public health engineering department over its execution.

A meeting to resolve the differences between the two departments was held here on Thursday.

Project consultant S. M. Lakho, DCO Naseer Jamali, District Nazim Mohammed Bakhsh Arijo, the superintendent engineer of public health engineering department, EDO (works and services) Mukhtar Janveri attended the meeting.

Sources said the meeting decided to write to the secretary local government for further guidance as to who would execute the work, the TMA or the PHED.

The director-general of the PHED, Mr Siddique Jalalni in his letter to the superintendent engineer of the PHED on June 27 raised objection over the quality of work of the project.

He said that the scheme was being carried out by the TMA Larkana in violation of the Sindh government’s notification that schemes costing more than Rs10 million should be executed by the PHED.

He said that according to the federal government's guidelines the project director should have been financial, administrative and technical powers but in this case the PD had been bypassed.

The director-general of the public health department said in his inspection report that there were eleven shortcomings.

He said that the quality of RCC work was substandard, the finishing of top slabs and sidewall of drains were not in proper alignment due to the use of worn out shuttering.

He said that the expenditure incurred so far was purposeless as the drains constructed at different location were not connected while the work was not executed by the original pre-qualified contractor and the contractor had sublet it to petty contractors.

The role of the consultant did not seem perfect and it was not advisable to continue its services, he said.

The superintendent engineer of the Larkana PHED, Mr Ramchand, in a letter to the district nazim on September 13 called for transferring all schemes exceeding the cost of Rs10 million.