Bhopal: Chief minister’s announcement on Friday to wind up Capital Project Administration (CPA), an agency credited with construction of most of the prominent government buildings in the state capital including state secretariat has been preceded by a long battle between CPA and Public Works Department (PWD) over maintenance of roads, said officials.
A CPA official said, “It’s not clear as yet if the CM’s announcement means winding of the entire agency or it being deprived of the road related work in the state capital as the CM’s words came in the context of the road repairing and want of coordination among the agencies involved in construction and repairing of the roads in the state capital.”
The official said the CPA has had a major contribution in development of the state capital and it was set up more than six decades back on October 1, 1060 on the approval of Planning Commission, Government of India for a planned development, beautification and conservation of environment of the state capital.
Thus, said the official, the CPA constructed and maintenance roads, parks and buildings besides safeguarding the development of land marked as government land.
The prominent buildings constructed by the CPA besides Vallabh Bhavan (state secretariat) include Vindhyachal Bhavan, Satpura Bhavan, both having directorates of various departments, MP Academy of Administration, CPA Bhavan, EPCO Bhavan, TT Nagar Stadium, Babe Ali Stadium, MP Madhyam Bhavan, WALMI Bhavan, Sanskriti Bhavan, Vidhan Bhavan, Swaraj Bhavan, Urja Bhavan, Hotel Management Institute, Disaster Management Institute, chief electoral officer’s office building, state election commission building etc.
The officer said most of the roads in the state capital were constructed and later handed over to the PWD for its maintenance. However, for the past few years the PWD didn’t take over many of the roads constructed, hence CPA being tasked with the maintenance of these roads. Approximately, CPA has with it about 100 km length in Bhopal city.
As per another official from the PWD, there is always a state of confusion as to which of the three agencies- PWD, CPA and Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) was maintaining which of the roads. The fact is BMC is tasked mainly with maintenance of roads inside colonies but there are roads like Link Roads nos. 2 and 3, VIP Road and several other roads.
