``Construction will be completed soon. Some of the flats have already been allotted,'' Y.L. Banka, chief engineer (north zone, in which the Jehangirpuri area falls) told Express Newsline today.

DDA's Member Engineering R.K. Bhandari conceded that in the early 1980s, specially around the time the 1982 Asian Games-related construction was at its zenith, a lot of projects had not been supervised properly. ``The Jehangirpuri construction, like that in Trilokpuri and Dilshad Garden, was of poor quality. The focus was on flyovers, stadia and bigger constructions, so probably supervision was lax here,'' Bhandari said. DDA constructed 520 Middle Income Group (MIG) flats in the area. Of them, 56 structures were demolished and 176 flats are being rebuilt.

``It is not as though all the flats of the four-storeyed structures were faulty. Not all of them have had to be pulled down. In some buildings, two floors were knocked off and in others only one had to be pulled down and rebuilt. Some buildings had to be knocked down altogether. But major penalty proceedings have been initiated against erring officers supervising the construction,'' an official said. DDA officials are not willing to talk of the loss to the organisation and the taxpayer because of the demolition and the rebuilding process. ``Since the arbitration proceedings are still on, we cannot comment on the losses. But we could not have risked damage to life and property by allowing people to live in poorly constructed homes,'' he added.

``Disciplinary action awaits guilty officers. Each DDA project of this kind has an executive engineer in-charge and there are assistant engineers and junior engineers who supervise the project under him. So in case something goes wrong, they have to explain,'' Bhandari said. DDA sources said that in the Jehangirpuri project even the bricks and badarpur were substandard and consequently the houses built were rejected. Director north-zone Banka confirmed that the construction material was of poor quality and and the houses had to be demolished. ``But the poor material and workmanship were detected in time and work was stopped midway,'' he added.

DDA is closely supervising the construction of the houses now. ``No doubt we failed in our duty when the flats were being constructed. But now we are making doubly sure that the material that is being used is of good quality and the junior engineer is camping at the construction site,'' an official in the engineering department said.

Spokesperson Neemo Dhar also said that it was not a question of financial loss to the DDA. ``The money will be recovered and responsibility pinned on the erring officials,'' she insisted.