Times of
India: Madurai: Saturday, September 22, 2018.
An
RTI (Right to Information) activist has decided to approach the court after he
detected fake bills to the tune of Rs 6.27 lakh in vouchers for Rs 1 crore
belonging to the Madurai Corporation. Stating that there is a possibility of
more such bills, he sought that all the vouchers of the civic body for the year
2016-2017 amounting to Rs 308 crore should be sent for examination.
Founder
of the People’s Awareness Trust, K Hakkim said that he had filed an RTI on the
expenditure incurred by the corporation under various heads under the AMRUT
scheme, for the financial year 2016-2017 and found that the expenditure was
exorbitantly given under certain heads. Hence, he had submitted a petition to
the district collector on August 6 seeking permission to peruse the bills.
The
collector, who received the petition sought a detailed report in this regard.
Then, he sought permission, as per Section 2J of the RTI Act of 2005 to examine
the bills under certain heads such as cost of medicine, vehicle maintenance,
streetlight maintenance and advertisement, amounting to Rs 29,42,20,739 for
2016-2017.
He
was given permission to go through the vouchers on September 17 and 18, but
only vouchers under five sections for Rs 1 crore were given to him.
Corporations officials had told him that the other bills had to got after
auditing.
Among
the bills obtained by him were those pertaining to payments made to SKA
Traders, Vikas Agency, Shree Shanjay Pharma, and HERANBA Industries Limited.
When the TIN numbers of these companies were verified on the Tamil Nadu
government website, it was revealed that one of them, belonging to HERANBA Industries
did not match. The contact numbers displayed on the bill also proved to be
false. When the manager of HERANBA, Senthil was contacted, he stated that the
company’s Tamil Nadu branch was functioning in Trichy and not in Chennai as
displayed in the Madurai Corporation’s bills pertaining to that company.
Hence,
it is revealed that the city health officer has written to a non-existent firm,
seeking temephos 50EC, a mosquito repellent. There is also a receipt to show
that the substance for Rs 6,27,675 was delivered to the corporation godown. The
corporation audit report for the period also stated that all bills are true and
fair.
“I
was able to examine the bills for only Rs 1 crore for 2016-2018, out of the
total expenditure for the same year which was Rs 308 crore. Many more
misappropriations can be detected if all the bills for the total amount are
given,” he added.
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