The Municipal Commissioner may claim of going by the book while offering design contracts,but eyebrows are being raised over favouring a particular architect. The fact that the newly-proposed Mahila Bhawan in Sector 38,a few community centres and other smaller projects of the Municipal Corporation have been designed by the same architect became a point of discussion in the House Meet on Friday. The issue was raised by councillor Pallav Mukherjee. He questioned why the civic body showed undue favour to Bachitter Singh,who prepared the design for the community centre in Sector 48. We would like to know the procedure being followed for allotment of projects. Just one architect is designing all the major projects of the Municipal Corporation. He is being paid up to Rs 20 lakh for some designs, he said. He said in some cases,work was divided and then smaller contracts were allotted. Area councillor Jatinder Bhatia rued over the delay in preparing the plans. The architect takes around four to five months to prepare the plans. Clearance of the designs delays the process further. And the Architecture department attributes the delay to the time taken in preparation of the plans, he said. During a previous House Meet,councillor Pam Rajput had pointed out that changes suggested in the plans for Mahila Bhawan were being incorporated and this should be done before construction commences. Another councillor said whenever the Architecture department points out loopholes in the design,and the architect is called,the response is always delayed. Municipal Commissioner,Dr Roshan Sunkaria,however,told the House that allocation of contracts for making designs could not have been done without following proper procedure.
