Diamond Harbour's ₹27cr Riverfront: ₹213cr Restoration

Diamond Harbour’s abandoned riverfront project has shifted from a delivery failure to a criminal inquiry. West Bengal BJP leader Abhijit Das has filed a complaint at Diamond Harbour Police Station seeking an FIR, citing CAG Report No. 06 of 2025 on the ₹27.17 crore “Beautification of river bank from Sub Divisional Office to Kellar Math” scheme sanctioned in August 2017.

How the Project Failed

The commercial arithmetic is severe. The project was initiated on a proposal from the then Diamond Harbour MP, Abhishek Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress.

In August 2019, a major stretch of the embankment near NH 117 collapsed into the Hooghly, taking the contractor’s work with it.

Key financial and execution failures followed:

- The West Bengal Public Works Department (PWD) then restored the embankment from its own funds at a reported ₹213.16 crore — roughly 7.8 times the original sanctioned value.
- The unnamed private agency later claimed ₹22.59 crore in dues, of which ₹21.29 crore was paid following a Calcutta High Court order.
- The project was abandoned in March 2023 after a Jadavpur University feasibility study flagged the fragility of the land.

Sanction Without Geotechnical Evidence

The failure sits at sanction, not execution.

The Tourism Department told the CAG that soil testing, land surveys and hydrographic surveys had been completed, but the CAG found the area’s vulnerability had not been adequately assessed and supporting documents were not produced.

A riverbank scheme approved on Bandh and Rasta land under the Irrigation & Waterways Department therefore moved to construction without verifiable geotechnical evidence.

Industry Implications and Risk Reset

The industry signal is unambiguous.

When front-end geotechnical due diligence is treated as procedural formality, the downstream cost multiplier is measurable — nearly eight times the sanctioned value, plus a separate 160-metre embankment repair of ₹2.15 crore in 2025-26 now under scrutiny.

The consequences are now clear:

- The contractor lost completed work to the river.
- PWD absorbed the restoration cost.
- The state now faces a criminal inquiry into sanction, execution, measurement, certification and payment.

Diamond Harbour should reset risk frameworks for riverfront and embankment projects.

Soil investigation and feasibility must be independently verifiable before sanction, because the cost of ignoring fragile riverbank land is not abstract — it is a ₹213 crore restoration bill and a permanently abandoned asset.