The Hindu: Bangalore: Friday,
March 22, 2013.
A private
complaint was filed in the Special Lokayukta Court here alleging gross
irregularities in infrastructure projects commissioned by the Public Works
Department in Magadi and Channapatna between 2009 and 2012.
Documents
procured under RTI Act, which were submitted to the court, seek to establish
that the department officials commissioned the same projects twice within a gap
of a few months.
Despite
spending public money on the same project more than once, the works have not
yet been completed, lawyer B.N. Jagdeesha told the court on behalf of his
client. According to the complainant C. Puttaswamy, who is a member of the
Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, the loss to the exchequer was in excess of Rs.
280 crore.
The
submission to the court shows, for instance, that 1,248 road works worth Rs.
228 crore were commissioned by the department in 2011-12 in Channapatna and
Magadi. However, the works were never completed or were of substandard quality,
he alleged.
Further, he
submitted documents to show that these road work projects had been commissioned
in 2009-10 and 2010-11. Mr. Puttaswamy also showed several instances where the
payments were released to contractors despite the fact that nothing had
happened on the ground.
One example
was that of a 4.2-km stretch of road between Gudemaranahalli and Byladdakere in
Magadi for which 31 work orders were sanctioned at a cost of Rs. 6 crore.
Despite the
multiple sanctions and the large sums of money spent, the work was of low
quality, he alleged.
It has also
been alleged that to avoid scrutiny under the e-tender regime, which requires
the department to call for online tenders for projects above Rs. 20 lakh, the
department officials deliberately broke up each project into smaller bits below
the Rs. 20-lakh mark. All these tenders were awarded to a small group of 10
contractors, the complainant alleged.
It was also
submitted that in addition to the projects commissioned by the the department,
there were projects undertaken by NABARD, Karnataka State Highway
Infrastructure Project, Prime Minister’s Gram Sadak Yojana and other
Centrally-funded road projects.
The case has
been posted to March 28.
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