The promised completion was in 2011. Cost has doubled.
New Delhi: In January 2008, the Madhya Pradesh government awarded the tender for the construction of the Sleemanabad tunnel, part of the Bargi Diversion Project—a significant irrigation initiative in the Narmada Valley. The contract stipulated a completion timeframe of 40 months, with an expected finish date of April 2011.
Initially, the project was awarded for Rs 799 crore. However, after granting at least six extensions, total payments to the private contractor have surged to nearly Rs 1,454 crore. Despite being due for completion over 13 years ago, the project remains several months away from finishing.
How was the project, which was to be completed within three and a half years, allowed to remain incomplete more than a decade later? Why has the government paid nearly double the original tender amount? These questions have generated no answers, leading to concerns that public exchequer funds were misused by corrupt government officials in connivance with private entities who continue to take money for a project that was to be completed 13 years ago.
In December 2007, the Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA), an organization of the Madhya Pradesh government constituted in 1985 for planning water resources development in the Narmada basin and expeditious implementation of projects, floated a tender for the “Sleemanabad canal project,” which involved constructing a 12 km underground 10-meter diameter tunnel and a 13 km open canal in Katni, through which water from the Bargi dam would pass. The initial cost of this turnkey contract was Rs 640 crore, and when it was finally awarded to a joint venture between Patel Engineering and SEW Infrastructure, the project cost was set at Rs 799 crore.
In the wake of receiving this contract, the share price of Patel Engineering rose by 3% on 24 March 2009.
As per its latest company reports, it is currently working on several projects, including the Dibang Multipurpose Project in Arunachal Pradesh, which has a capacity of 2,880 MW. Under this project, it is constructing head race tunnels, intake structures, pressure shafts, penstocks, the powerhouse and transformer cavern, tailrace tunnels and pothead yard.
The company has further claimed that of the approximately 18,000 MW of hydropower projects under execution in India, it is involved in around 8,000 MW of these projects, which represents a 45% market share. Some of the major hydropower projects that the company is working on, apart from the Dibang Multipurpose Project, include the Subansiri Hydropower Project (Hydro Electric Project) (2,000 MW), Kiru HEP (624 MW), KWAR HEP (540 MW), Teesta VI HEP (500 MW), Shongtong HEP (450 MW), and Luhri HEP (210 MW).
As per the tender documents, under the Sleemanabad project, the tunnel would bring water from the Bargi dam, passing through four districts and including 1,450 villages and 245,010 hectares of land, which would provide 78,000,000 gallons of water per day to the villages covered in the four districts of Jabalpur, Katni, Satna, and Rewa. The said turnkey project was to be completed on or before 22 April 2011.
A turnkey civil contract is a type of construction agreement in which a contractor is responsible for all aspects of a project from start to finish. This means that the contractor handles everything, including design, construction, and project management, delivering a completed facility or project to the client.
However, the project is still far from being completed, almost fourteen years after the passing of the deadline.
In February 2024, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, while replying to a question on the status of the tunnel’s completion raised by fellow party member Ajay Vishnoi, an MLA from the Patan seat in the Jabalpur Lok Sabha constituency, admitted that a total sum of Rs 1,453.92 crore has been compensated to the contractor. In July, Yadav, while responding to a question by another party MLA from Katni, Prabhat Pandey, on the same issue, stated that 1.2 km of the tunnel construction still remains to be completed, while giving a deadline for the project’s completion as December 2024.
The Sunday Guardian reached out to officials at NVDA, Patel Engineering, and SEW Infrastructure for a response on this report. A response was sought from NVDA regarding the reasons behind the delay, the new deadline for completion, and whether NVDA has imposed any fines on the contractor for the delay and increase in cost. No response was received from either of them by the time the report went to press.
Aggrieved by this inordinate delay, Divyanshu Mishra Anshu, a resident of Katni, approached the Jabalpur High Court earlier this year.
On September 19, a double bench of Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and Justice Vinay Saraf issued a notice to the government, which sought four weeks’ time to respond, which was granted by the High Court.
Speaking to the Sunday Guardian, Mishra said that he informed the court through his lawyer Varun Tankha about the alleged undue favouritism shown by the Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA) towards contractors who failed to adhere to contract terms and failed to enforce any accountability for the delay and the cost escalation.
“This has led to significant delays in the project, severely impacting farmers—the primary beneficiaries of the irrigation canal—and hindering their agricultural productivity and livelihoods. Additionally, the project, originally costing Rs 799 crore, has seen misuse of public funds due to prolonged delays and escalating costs, indicating financial mismanagement. Despite it being a turnkey project, the government kept releasing them payment for different work at regular intervals. The NVDA has also failed to provide adequate oversight, contributing to inefficiencies in completing the canal and tunnel. This suggests collusion between state authorities and contractors, as extensions have repeatedly favoured the contractors,” he said.
“In light of these issues, I have requested the court to form a high power supervision committee in this matter. I have also requested the court to order the government to expedite the project’s completion within six months and call for an inquiry into the reasons behind the delays, along with a request to appoint a high-level officer to initiate disciplinary actions against erring officials,” Mishra said.