Ravi Chawla resigns as Technical Advisor to Punjab CM; government directs departments to independently evaluate tenders worth over Rs 2.50 crore.

The Punjab government has now accepted the resignation of Ravi Chawla, the Technical Advisor to the Chief Minister, who was hired to review building and road tenders totaling more than Rs 2.50 crore, following the dismissal of PSPCL director Harjit Singh. The heads of several departments have now been ordered by the administration to speed the job and evaluate the tenders on their own.

According to reports, a senior government official requested Chawla, who retired as chief engineer and was appointed Technical Advisor to CM in June 2024, to put in his papers. According to sources, Chawla submitted his resignation on Wednesday, a gazetted holiday due to Guru Nanak Dev’s Gurpurab. That same day, his resignation was accepted.

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It was soon discovered that the government had requested that the administrative secretaries of the relevant departments conduct the vetting independently. Several secretaries had complained about Chawla, according to a government official, since he was holding onto too many files and causing delays in the work.

After taking office in 2007, former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal established the position of technical advisor in order to “check” proposals for more than Rs 2.50 crore. The Technical Advisor, who had direct access to the CM, had to approve any tender worth this much before it could be floated. The first Technical Advisor was Lt Gen (Retd) BS Dhaliwal. In addition to managing infrastructure projects and guaranteeing technical standards and quality control in government projects, his responsibilities included providing technical knowledge and screening tenders. He continued with Lt Gen Dhaliwal till December 31, 2018, following Badal’s successor’s assumption of power in 2017. RS Sandhu, a former Chief Engineer, was later hired. Chawla was appointed by the AAP government to succeed him.