Take the money and run

The Public Works Department (PWD) has definitely lived up to its image of being a fertile ground for the corrupt.

A huge scam involving babus of the PWD has come into light, with culprits getting away with huge irregularities in the tender process for the Rs600 crore special grants meant for taking up works on roads, bridges and culverts in Ramanagara division of the PWD.

The high-ranking engineers and babus in PWD have been found to have used ingenious ways to favour two contractors in order to ensure that no other contractors bid for the works.

The huge contracts to execute works on roads, bridges and culverts were split into hundreds of small contracts of less than Rs20 lakh to gain exemption from the Karnataka Transparency Act, which stipulates mandatory e-tendering for any works above Rs20 lakh, said sources in the PWD.

This is not all, the top ranking engineers also issued tender advertisements with erroneous dates for submission of tender documents and even advanced the date of submission of tender bids to ensure that only two contractors got all the tenders in the financial year 2011-12.

But thanks to a flood of complaints from general public and several people’s representatives against the poor quality of works and huge misuse of funds, the state government suspended the executive engineer of Ramanagara division, Gangadharaiah, after a probe by vigilance section of the PWD in May 2012.

However, the action appeared to be too little, too late. “Such huge irregularities cannot happen without the knowledge of higher-ups — superintending engineer, chief engineer, department secretary and even the then PWD minister CM Udasi. Action should also have been taken against superintending engineer Uday Shankar along with the executive engineer Gangadharaiah,” said sources in the PWD.

According to sources, bills to the tune of Rs340 crore have already been cleared for the contractors and the quality of works, too, has been found to be poor.

Even as efforts were on to bury the scam, leader of the opposition Siddaramaiah put the government on the mat by raising the issue in the recent Belgaum session of state legislature, demanding a Lokayukta probe into the entire tendering process.

“It is prima facie clear that such a huge scam cannot happen without the knowledge of PWD minister and top officials and engineers in the department,” Siddaramaiah told DNA.
Bowing to the pressure, the state government announced formation of a legislature committee headed by BJP MLA Appu Pattanashetty to probe the issue and submit a report before March 30.

But thanks to bickerings within the BJP, the then PWD minister CM Udasi has already quit the ministry and joined the KJP. The legislature committee, which was to probe the irregularities, has not met even once. “We could not have a meeting as the members were busy campaigning for the urban local body polls,” said Pattanashetty speaking to DNA.

With the Election Commission expected to announce poll dates within the next few days, the legislature committee is all set to lose its relevance. The culprits are thus set to have the last laugh.

@hemanthdna