PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/ Haridwar
With the monkey menace turning into a big cause of worry for the residents of Haridwar because of the steady increase in the number of simians, the Haridwar Municipal Corporation and Haridwar Forest Division have called tenders for catching the troubling marauders. The municipal commissioner, Nandan Kumar said that the monkey catching campaign is likely to start next week. This announcement has helped the people feel relieved, hoping that this time something would happen to curb the simian terror in the city.
But the people can hardly forget the uncertain fate of another ambitious scheme-Bandarbara- which remains in limbo for five years since its foundation stone was laid. It was to come up in the Chidiyapur range of Haridwar forest division. The first year saw some works being done, but for the past four years, the scheme has been hanging fire.
Sharing details of the scheme, the executive engineer of Rural Construction department, Dinesh Kumar said that this work had started in March 2021. “According to the plan, two big monkey enclosures are to be constructed at a total cost of Rs 4.9 crore. With the Forest department having released Rs 2 crore, an additional Rs 2.9 crore has been demanded. Work will resume as soon as the funds are received,” he added.
But the question is: why the project has got stuck?
In the initial phase, the Forest department had handed over the work to the Rural Construction department by releasing Rs 2 crore. But the departmental engineers hiked the estimate four times, resulting in the Forest department’s refusal to fall in line and its consequent apathy.
The senior Forest officers said that the huge spike in the estimated cost by the Rural Construction department engineers was something baffling.
Speaking on the stalemate, the DFO, Vaibhav Kumar said that a third party investigation would be conducted for the project. “The funds will be released to the Rural Construction department only after receiving a go-ahead from the State government. The work has remained on hold due to lack of consensus on certain points. But we expect that the work will resume soon,” he added.
