Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The officials at Capital Project Administration (CPA) have expressed agony over the government's decision to close it. “CPA has been punished despite better performance,” they said.
The government decided to close CPA on August 20, 2021, after the chief minister expressed annoyance over bad roads in the state capital. After it, the Urban Administration Department (UAD) prepared the proposal and sent it to the cabinet. The cabinet, on March 3, approved the proposal and the 62-year-old CPA was split into three divisions.
The CPA superintendent engineer Ravi Mittal said the decision to shut it was taken due to bad road conditions. “But the fact is that our roads were far better in comparison to roads built by other agencies,” he added.
“Two roads, one leading to Bansal Hospital and second one leading to Eco-Aakriti city, were in bad shape as Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) was carrying on construction work there,” Mittal said.
“Secondly, If the bad roads are the cause, then only 92 kilometres of roads (7.5 per cent) of damaged roads were constructed by CPA and rest were laid by other road constructing agencies,” he added.
Jawahar Singh, who was associated with CPA as city engineer for long said, “It is the government's decision to close CPA. We are simply employees.”
Capital Project Administration (CPA), which was established in 1960, will be trifurcated and will be handed over to Public Works Department (PWD), Forest Department and Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department on March 31 as soon as the state cabinet approves it. A meeting will be held on March 7 for work distribution.
Under this, the responsibility of bridges, roads and buildings will be decided. The biggest challenge will handling the Annexe (Ministry).
The Forest Department will look after maintenance of 7 big parks including Ekant, Priyadarshini, Chinar, Mayur Park, Prakash Taran Pushkar. These parks were to be handed over to BMC.
The biggest responsibility has been given to PWD. The CPA was functioning as 6 divisions till now. Out of these, the responsibility of construction division-1 and 2, new electrical and mechanical and building controller assembly has been given to PWD.
In order to develop city systematically, CPA was formed in 1960 under the Department of Housing and Environment. Its task was to build and maintain the roads of Bhopal city. From building new ministry Annexe to VIP road, the CPA executed big projects.
The CPA built Bharat Bhawan, Shaurya Smarak, Tribal Museum, Manav Sangrahalaya, TT Nagar Stadium, Satpura, Vindhyachal etc.
The officials said CPA ran several projects in capital city including maintenance of Mantralaya, Satpura Bhawan, Vindhyanchal Bhawan, state assembly, MLA rest house, six hospitals including Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Kamla Nehru, Master Lal Singh, Shakir Ali and Pulmonary hospital, and several parks etc.
National Institute for Research in Environmental Health in Bhauri, development works in Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya, construction and maintenance of government colleges like MLB, polytechnic college and others are also with CPA.
Besides Mantralaya Bhawan, Nirvachan Sadan, Industrial Training Institute, Madhya Pradesh Academy of Administration, Urja Bhawan, Babe-Ali-stadium, TT Nagar stadium are with CPA.
