The ghost of piece works contracts in the Upper Krishna project (UKP) seems to be returning to haunt former prime minister HD Deve Gowda again after 16 years.
The ghost of piece works contracts in the Upper Krishna project (UKP) seems to be returning to haunt former prime minister HD Deve Gowda again after 16 years.
The state CID has filed an FIR at the Vidhana Soudha police related to the alleged irregularities in awarding of piece works contracts from 1995 to 98 when HD Deve Gowda and later JH Patel was the chief minister.
The CID filed the FIR after the high court directed the state government to act on the petition filed by Somashekara Reddy. CID DySP Shankrappa, in his complaint, has charged several senior engineers, contractors and officials in the alleged scam.
Though the CID complaint does not mention the names of any political leader, it does highlight the role of ‘non-officials’ in the alleged scam.
The piece works contracts had raised a political storm after Gowda quit as the CM and moved to Delhi as the prime minister.
The opposition had alleged that Gowda, before giving up his chief minister’s post in 1995, had approved of hundreds of piece works contracts related to UKP in a single night. It is said that Gowda sanctioned Rs400 crore to private contractors for executing the piece works.
It is alleged that Gowda, brushing aside objections from some of his cabinet colleagues, had cleared the contracts without calling for tenders, thus violating the contract norms.
It is said, in Narayanapur right bank canal, a part of work worth Rs2.35 crore was later jacked up to Rs20.75 crore.
A state legislature committee had then recommended a CBI probe into the scam. But the recommendation was rejected by then chief minister JH Patel. Instead, he constituted another all-party committee to probe the case.
The second committee failed to submit any report though Gowda’s detractors, mainly rival Ramakrishna Hegde who had floated Lok Shakti following a brawl with Gowda, stepped up pressure with former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for a CBI probe.
The state government had also constituted a four-member committee of retired officials to probe certain irregularities in works under the Upper Krishna basin between 1994 and 1997, but it failed to come up with any concrete report.
Vyjanath Patil, the chairman of estimates committee of state legislature had then alleged that the irregularities in UKP works were not limited to the period when Gowda was the chief minister.
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