The state government has cracked the whip on 800 contractors laying roads under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and Mukhya Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (MMGSY) by lodging money suits and certificate cases against them.

It has also terminated their agreements over irregularities, including poor quality or roads, delay in completion of projects, abandoning construction midway and not undertaking maintenance work.

Irregularities by these contractors, who were working under the rural works department to complete PMGSY and MMGSY, were detected in various parts of the state. They will be blacklisted, rendering them ineligible to bag any government contract in Bihar for 10 years.

Rural works department secretary Vinay Kumar told The Telegraph: "Agreements with 800 contractors have been terminated. Quality of roads, their maintenance and delay in execution were major issues. Certificate cases and money suits against them have been lodged to recover money from them."

Vinay added that 6,000 contractors working on rural works department-monitored projects were declared defaulters and were debarred over inconsistencies in fulfilling agreements. But 2,000 of them have taken remedial measures and come out of debarment.

Actions are pending at various stages against the rest of them, including the 800 against whom certificate cases and money suits have been lodged. Their deposits or securities with the government would be confiscated and additional costs incurred on completion of projects would be collected.

Department sources said tough action against errant contractors was taken on the basis of complaints senior officials received. Verifications and inspections will follow. Gross negligence has been detected on the part of contractors.

A senior official of the department said:"Agreements with contractors also have a clause for ensuring mandatory maintenance of roads they construct for five years. However, there have been hundreds of cases in which contractors have not done so, leading to poor condition or even destruction of such roads."

The department's basic objective is to construct and maintain rural roads falling mainly in the category of "other district roads" (roads serving rural areas of production and connecting them to market centres, taluka (tehsil) headquarters, block headquarters or other main roads) and "village roads" (roads connecting villages or habitations to the nearest road of a higher category). These roads are built under PMGSY and MMGSY.

The implementation of Gramin Tola Sampark Nischay Yojana, a part of chief minister Nitish Kumar's seven resolves for a developed Bihar and will connect all habitations with a population between 100 and 249 by 2019-20, has also been entrusted to the department.