Scam to fore in purchase of benches by Panchayat Dept

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Fatehabad, September 2

A scam running in crores involving purchase of reinforced cement concrete (RCC) benches has come to the fore in Fatehabad district.

More than 2,500 such benches have been purchased for villages, mostly coming under the Tohana and Ratia blocks of the district, for a price between Rs8,400 and Rs10,500 a piece during the present BJP government.

Most of the purchases are from a single supplier.

An inquiry conducted by Block Development and Panchayat Officer Anubhav Mehta following a complaint at the CM Window has revealed the actual cost of a bench is between Rs2,500 and Rs3,000.

The scam came to light when Manoj Chandel, an RTI activist from Bhirdana village, approached the CM Window with a complaint that the benches had been purchased at highly exaggerated price and had been priced differently for different villages.

“I was sitting in a private school when a representative of the unit that supplied benches to our village for Rs6,200 a piece came there and quoted Rs2,000 for the same bench to the school,” Chandel told The Tribune.

He said he was seeking reports of such possible purchases in Sirsa and Hisar districts too. “I had purchased 15 benches after following the due procedure of quotations and with the concurrence of the BDPO,” confirmed Mithu Ram, former sarpanch of Damkora village of the Tohana block. He said the price was a little more than Rs10,000 a piece, but he could not tell the price offhand without seeing the bills.

Mahender Singh Lakha, Block Development and Panchayat Officer, Tohana, however, denied any directions were issued to the panchayats for the purchase of benches.

He said most of the benches had been purchased before he joined at Tohana.

Amareek Singh, a former sarpanch of Babanpur village, said he purchased 25 benches for Rs8,400 per piece from the same supplier.

Rajesh Sharma, BDPO at Ratia, said his office was collecting details of the total purchases and said the payments were made on the signatures of the sarpanch and the panchayat secretary.

Chandel, however, alleged that a scam of this level could not be possible without the complicity of seniors in the department.

Rajesh Koth, District Development and Panchayat Officer, said the matter would be thoroughly inquired and action would be taken against the guilty.

He said the department had sought specifications of the benches from the supplier, but he has chosen not to respond. He said he had stopped payments from the banks after the matter came to his knowledge.