Jharkhand High Court slapped contempt notices on the state government today as it was dissatisfied with the explanation given for delay in furnishing the detailed project report (DPR) of the Kanhar Dam in Garhwa. The matter will again be taken up on January 17, 2011. A division bench of Chief Justice Bhagwati Prasad and Justice D.K. Sinha pulled up water resources department chief engineer Nilmani Tirkey and executive engineer Muhammad Gholam Haider for not complying with the orders of the court. The court had directed the state to prepare the DPR in August this year. The bench said the engineers had not worked and only thought about earning their commissions. The court added that the two officers were not worthy of being posted in strategic positions where critical decisions needed to be taken in a definite period of time. The bench recorded that the officers were incompetent to execute sensitive works. In its defence, the government filed an affidavit through Tirkey and explained that according to the directives of the court, work for preparing a DPR had commenced. However, the job required the engineers to survey the site of the dam at Garhwa. Before that could be done, ongoing rural polls were announced and the officials were called in for election duty. The court, however, refuted the explanation and said that when construction of the dam was started after prodding from the high court, there was no need to disturb the officers, adding the explanation offered was unsatisfactory. The bench directed the two officers to show cause why the displeasure of the court should not be mentioned in their respective service books to initiate action against them. The matter had come up in a public interest litigation filed by former minister Hemendra Pratap Dehati, a resident of Garhwa. Dehati had said that the construction of the dam was started in 1974 and was pending since then. No substantial work has been done to complete the project by either the erstwhile Bihar government or the state government after bifurcation of the state in 2000. The court was also informed that the state government had already spent Rs 19 crore for the project, but had not been able to complete it as yet. The government had earlier informed the court that constructing a dam on the river will obstruct flow of water in neighbouring Chhattisgarh and therefore, a barrage may be constructed on the river instead of a dam.