It’s been 20 days since PWD engineer Yogendra Pandey died under mysterious circumstances, soon after receiving threats from the road construction ‘mafia’ in Sitamarhi district. Travelling along the Sitamarhi-Riga-Dheng Road, it is easy to understand why the reportedly upright engineer cancelled the contract given to Kishore Singh’s Vats Constructions and subsequently blacklisted the company for failing to meet its May 30, 2009, deadline. Singh, who had beaten up Pandey on June 6, is under CBI watch.

As The Indian Express journeyed on the road in question, it was clear that only 6 km of the 24-km project was “motorable” as per PWD specifications. The rest of the 18-km stretch is a mixture of stone and moraine or poor concrete road with inadequate bitumen. There are six stretches where there is no discernable road at all — not even any soil filling to be seen.

At two places (along 1.5-km), only one side of the road has been built. What one could see along the stretch in the name of the company’s commitment to complete the project was heaps of soil on the roadside, used for no purpose other than as a makeshift sandpit for children. In 2006, Vats Constructions was awarded a contract of Rs 12.63 crore for the repair, widening and strengthening of Sitamarhi-Riga (9 km) and Riga-Dheng road projects. After the company pressed for full payment this April, the PWD engineer inspected the sites and doled out Rs 6 crore as the work was incomplete.

STRETCH: Sitamarhi-Dheng

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