Sirsa civic body scam may run into crores

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Sirsa, August 2

The second Sirsa Municipal Council scam in which the State Vigilance Bureau (SVB) has registered an FIR against six officials for siphoning off Rs7.28 lakh for the construction of streets is just the tip of the iceberg, as the entire scam is likely to run into crores.

A perusal of an FIR registered in the SVB police station at Hisar on July 29, a copy which is with The Tribune, revealed that in its preliminary inquiries before recommending the case, the SVB had randomly selected 15 streets out of the 128 constructed by the accused in 2009-10 and 2010-11.

The FIR is against Neki Ram, a retired executive officer of the MC; Ramesh Chander, a retired municipal engineer (ME), Phool Singh, an ME posted at Kalanwali; and Ashok Kumar, Munish Kumar and Jagdish Rai, all junior engineers.

The SVB had conducted a probe into the construction of 128 streets with interlocking paver blocks (IPB) floor tiles after the allegations that the municipal authorities had allotted works of Rs 3 lakh each to contractors to subvert the prescribed system of tenders in 2009-10 and 2011-12.

It was alleged that even streets in good condition were uprooted and replaced with IPB tiles to “mint” money. The inquiry report also mentioned the names of HCS officer Balraj Jakhar, the then City Magistrate, and Om Prakash Yadav, an assistant in the Deputy Commissioner’s office.

In its final report submitted to the government for approval on March 26, the SVB had observed that the executive engineer of the bureau from Panchkula inspected merely 15 out of the 128 streets in question and found siphoning of Rs 7.28 lakh by the six officials who have been named in July 29 FIR. During inspections, the SVB found lesser use of the material than claimed in most of the streets. In some cases, even the length of the streets was shown much more than their actual lengths.

The SVB found that the municipal authorities showed bills for the purchase of IPB tiles worth Rs 14.73 lakh from Balaji Trading Company, but the firm’s records submitted to the Sales Tax Department showed it the sales, while remitting VAT.

The SVB had also recommended recovery of VAT of Rs 7.34 lakh from the company.

The SVB inquiry found that bricks removed from the Khairpur Gali police post were also misappropriated by the municipal officials.

The report said Jakhar issued a satisfactory report to the development works on his own without taking the help of a monitoring committee set up for the purpose in 2007, while Yadav misled the DC by not mentioning the contents of an inquiry report submitted by the Ellenabad SDM in his noting. In its inquiry report, the SVB had recommended action under Rule 8 of the Haryana Civil Services Rules against Jakhar and Yadav.

What the report said

In its final report submitted to the government for approval on March 26, the SVB had observed that the executive engineer of the bureau from Panchkula inspected merely 15 out of the 128 streets in question and found siphoning of Rs 7.28 lakh by the six officials who have been named in July 29 FIR.