Ludhiana: A central money-laundering investigation against a prominent state politician has stalled an overhaul of the industrial city’s infrastructure, exposing internal fractures over privatization and inflated project costs.Essential municipal services, from modern waste management to high-tech street cleaning, have ground to a halt across Ludhiana as private contractors pull out of govt bidding.The centerpiece of the municipal agenda — a ₹162-crore plan to transform 15 km of city roads into “European-style” corridors — now meets with administrative silence. The project drew criticism from state’s opposition parties and municipal labour unions over its high cost, which averages an unprecedented ₹10 crore for each km.Bureaucratic inertia took hold following the Enforcement Directorate’s recent arrest of state minister Sanjeev Arora in connection with an alleged racket of money laundering and fake GST billing.The administrative gridlock centres on a jurisdictional dispute between state and local authorities over who will take legal responsibility for the contract. The Punjab Infrastructure Development Board (PIDB) in Chandigarh managed the entire bidding process and compiled the detailed project report using a private consultant at a cost of ₹3.5 crore.State officials are now forcing Ludhiana’s municipal corporation to issue the formal letter of intent (LOI) to the selected contractor. Local civic officials are resisting the directive. Because they did not draft the initial financial estimates or float the tenders themselves, engineers fear personal legal liability should the inflated costs trigger a formal corruption inquiry.Municipal administrators officially attribute the delays in the waste management and street cleaning projects to weak market response from private firms. However, internal department sources confirm that investigators are scrutinising high-value tenders across the state, leaving bureaucrats unwilling to sign off on controversial privatization deals.Superintending engineer Sham Lal Gupta declined to comment on the specific causes of the delays, stating only that major policy decisions remain under evaluation “at higher levels”. “Decisions are to be taken at the govt level,” he said. “We have to implement those on the ground, but as of now, we have not received any instructions.”
