The Times of India:Ankur Jain:Thursday, January 26, 2012.
AHMEDABAD: It is a web of deceit woven over tones of debris, quake victims' anguish and fake documents. Eleven years past the killer earthquake in 2001, as thousands still remain homeless and jobless in Kutch, the long list of corruption cases buried beneath the debris are now raising a stink.
In the last one decade, close to 700 people in Kutch, mostly panchayat, taluka and district-level government officials and local leaders have been arrested in several post-quake scams. Suspended IAS officer Pradeep Sharma is among those arrested.
From land grabbing to fraudulently availed loans, close to 3,500 people, including serving MLAs, sarpanches, TDOs and bank officials, are facing inquires.
Only this month, Bhuj anti-corruption bureau (ACB) arrested 18 people, including two taluka development officers, Shailesh Manar and Manu Thakkar and others in a debris removal scam case. ACB has registered six different complaints in which 799 people from Bhuj, Bhachau, Anjar and Rapar have been accused of submitting bogus bills of debris removal to siphon off around Rs 14 crore worth of government money. The contracts for debris removal were given to two companies - Kothari Construction and Adarsh Construction.
In another scam worth almost Rs 30-crore, CID (Crime) has got 28 files with details of 3,000 loans disbursed to people in quake affected areas in Kutch. Interestingly, the complainant in the case, Jayanti Bhanushali, a local leader then and now a sitting BJP MLA from Abdassa, when contacted denies of filing such complaint.
"For those starting new businesses in quake-affected regions was given an Rs 1 lakh loan of which they had to pay only Rs 40,000 later. We have instances where loans for setting up 70 beauty parlors and 80 computer centers have been given in villages where total 150 families reside," said a senior CID crime official.
CID is also investigating four others cases including one where IAS officer Sharma along with 15 others are accused of grabbing government land and creating false beneficiaries to claim plots given to quake affected. In one of cases being investigated by CID, where thousands have fraudulently availed plots given to quake-affected people, the complainant Arvind Gadhvi has passed away.
However, this apart, Bhuj collectorate and Gujarat Water Supply & Sewerage Board's Bhuj office is probing several corruption cases where water pipelines and sewage lines never laid in quake-affected areas have been paid for by the government.
"After the earthquake, Kutch received aide and grants using which ten more Kutchs could have been built. However, Bhuj collectorate still sees people staging dharnas demanding houses and aide to build their house. Several agencies and department are sitting on hundreds of complaints and though arrests have been made, little has been done to sentence the accused," said Henry Chacko, RTI activist from Bhuj, on whose complaint inquiry against Sharma was done.
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