Habitat chairman and noted architect G Sankar has come out with clear hints to suggest that everything that happened under the Life Mission project in Wadakkancherry was not transparent.
Sankar disclosed that he was asked to suspend the project while he was in the process of revising the Habitat project document to slash the cost as demanded by Life Mission.
The contract for construction of the flats was given to Unitac later.
He said the design of the buildings constructed by Unitac was having similarities with the plan submitted by Habitat.
Q: How did Habitat get in touch with the Life Mission Project?
A: Habitat had not participated in the tender floated by Life Mission. We became part of the project in our capacity as a project management consultant. We submitted a proposal before the government for taking up a consultancy in seven districts.
Q: How was Habitat excluded from the Life Mission Project?
A: We were not excluded. We came out of the project ourselves. The Life Mission authorities demanded prefabricated technology for two districts and Wadakkanchery project was not part of that. We are not familiar with prefab technology.
With the project implementation shifting to the engineering procurement system the consultant had to take up all responsibilities such as design, estimate preparation, assisting in the tender process, finding contractors and ensuring quality standards.
We thought such a system was not feasible for us hence we submitted an application to withdraw from the project. We received the nod for withdrawing from the project on October 30, 2019.
Q: What actually happened to Wadakancherry Project?
A: The design of Wadakancherry project had to be changed four times. Earlier a scheme costing Rs 31.54 crore was prepared for constructing 234 units in Wadakancherry.
With the Life Mission authorities demanding that the cost be reduced further, a revised project costing Rs 27.50 crore was submitted for 203 units. Subsequently, we were asked to bring down the cost below Rs 15 crore as per the financial assistance provided by the sponsor.
LIFE Mission CEO U V Jose made this demand through a letter on July 18 after signing the MoU with Red Crescent. As per their demand, we submitted a draft project document involving a cost of Rs 12.5 crore including taxes.
In the first week of August, Life Mission authorities asked me to suspend all works related to the Wadakancherry project as there were certain doubts regarding sponsorship.
Q: Was the Habitat replaced for quoting a higher price?
A: The allegation that Habitat was replaced for quoting a high price is not correct. But there was a difference of opinion with Life Mission's engineering methods.
Q: How did Unitac receive the contract?
A: I don’t know about Unitac. It is not clear what changes Unitac made in the project document submitted by Habitat.
Q: The chief minister was upset with Habitat for publicly complaining that the government had not paid money?
A: There is a section in the bureaucracy which always thinks how to bring the works to a halt. I shared my views on the issue publicly, upholding the chief minister's words that each file contains a life.
Habitat had bagged the consultancy contract at 4.39 per cent of the project estimate. We pulled out when 17 per cent of it was completed. We received 75 per cent of the amount at different stages and an application was submitted to the chief minister for getting the remaining amount.
I understand the file has been sent for further action. We hope to get the amount soon.
Q: Is the present construction activities going as per the design submitted by Habitat?
A: The design submitted by Unitac which has bagged the project contract, has basic similarities with the outline submitted by Habitat earlier. The main difference is only related to the hospital building. However, I have not examined the entire documents related to the project.