Megha Engineering and Infrastructure ltd (MEIL) was slammed with a show-cause notice by the National Highways Authority of India on 27 July 2024 for poor design and work execution in the construction of a six-lane road from Chengala to Nileswaram on NH-17 in Kerala.
In a strongly worded notice, the NHAI stated,
‘Bad quality of works on the subject project happened due to serious lapse from Concessionaire in adherence of the construction methodology and bad quality of shuttering and scaffolding/design.’
The first incident that happened at the project site was the collapse of the deck slab of VUP…on 29 October 2022.’
A committee formed by the NHAI carried out an investigation and found that ‘serious lapses from the end of the Concessionaire in design and work execution’ which led to the incident. The NHAI authority suspended the Project-in Charge, engineer and imposed penalty of 30 lakhs on the Concessionaire.
Another incident of slipped off the girder along with the deck-slab at completed Pullur happened on 8 May 2024.
Expressing its disappointment on the poor quality of design and work execution delivered by MEIL, the authority show caused the company and demanded them to explain why action should not be taken under Rule 1.3 (ii) of the NHAI policy and why a penalty ranging from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore should not be imposed on them.
