Ranchi, June 4: Jharkhand Urban Infrastructure Development Company (JUIDCO), an arm of the state urban development, today debarred global consultancy Ernst & Young (E&Y) from participating in any of its future projects for the next three years, citing shoddy work, but the consultants blamed "some forces" out to boot the company from state government projects.
This development comes after cabinet on May 24 resolved to drop E&Y and a small agency Prabhatan Advertising from all state branding, promotions and PR work.
Urban development had appointed E&Y as knowledge partners two years ago. Today, a debarment notice was issued by JUIDCO duly vetted by urban development department, in a couple of vernacular dailies, which was also uploaded on its website.
Asked why, D.K. Singh, project director (technical) of JUIDCO called E&Y's work "more of a copy-paste job".
"Their work in preparing environmental social impact assessment or ESIA reports and other work related to around a dozen projects of roads, sewerage and other urban projects was below par," Singh said. "Last month, the company submitted a revised ESIA report to the department for some roads in Dhanbad. After evaluation it was found that the company made no changes to the department's suggestions. Reviews of reports submitted revealed more of a copy-paste job than any real work," said Singh.
Around 10-12 projects of their department and World Bank are being handled by E&Y and work is shoddy almost in every project, he added.
He also said the poor quality of assessment reports delayed projects themselves.
Singh specified that the debarment meant the company couldn't take part in any future/new projects for three years from now but have not been blacklisted completely. "E&Y has the responsibility to finish pending projects as soon as possible or else we will have to think of a future course of action," he said.
But, officials of E&Y - the firm continues to work for state departments such as IT, industries, sports, art and culture, among others - have a different version.
An E&Y official in the team handling the 'single window' of state urban development department said today's notice came as a "surprise".
"I saw the notice today, which came as a surprise. There are some forces engaged in booting E&Y. Those particular projects of JUIDCO were being handled by company's business advisory team from Calcutta. If any issues exist, they could have been sorted out over talks," he said.
