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The Puducherry government had issued an order dated March 12, 2013, constituting the steering committee for re-launching of Tank Rehabilitation Project.
Published: 05th May 2019 06:06 AM | Last Updated: 05th May 2019 06:06 AM | A+A A-
By Express News Service
CHENNAI : A division bench of the Madras High Court while upholding two tenders of Puducherry government issued in August and September 2017 for executing works under the ‘Integrated Surface Water Management’ scheme through rejuvenation of 20 tanks and 32 village ponds for climate change adoption, has suggested the re-constitution of the steering committee to monitor the works.
A bench of Justices M Venugopal and S Vaidyanathan, which upheld the tenders, directed the Puducherry Chief Secretary to shuffle the committee by including one higher officer each from the Ground Water Authority and Pollution Control Board and an expert in the field of desilting and removal of ‘savudu’ soil, while making borewells in the tanks.
The Puducherry government had issued an order dated March 12, 2013, constituting the steering committee for re-launching of Tank Rehabilitation Project. Most of the officials in the committee are bureaucrats and what was needed is an efficient and honest official, the bench said.As there is a provision in the GO to add other persons too as members in the panel, the bench said that it was doing so. The government must ensure that the officials to be appointed in the committee should be honest, meritorious, efficient and work knowing and there should be no political blend in the appointment, the judges said.
The bench, however, rejected a plea from the petitioner association to entrust Kudimaramathu maintenance and all other allied works in respect of all water bodies to it and to the Tank Association in the Union Territory in the villages concerned. It is for the government to decide, as mere challenge to the tender notifications will not give any right to the association to seek for participation in the steering committee as a matter of right, the bench added. |
