State lawyers delayed ICDS report

After senior officers of the women and child welfare department were taken to task by chief minister Prithviraj Chavan for keeping him in the dark about details related to the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scam it turns out that the CM may be partially right in claiming that he was yet to see the report even four days after it was submitted to the Supreme Court.

A letter written on November 6 by a government advocate in the Supreme Court to the women and child development commissioner stated that the report which stated irregularities in awarding contracts worth Rs1,000 crore to supply food to poor children and their mothers in Maharashtra was submitted by the court appointed commissioner on November 1 by 4pm. The matter was not called upon or heard on November 2 as the court timing was over by then. The court gave the state four weeks to file a response to the report.

The letter states that a copy of the 300-page report was to be couriered by 4pm on November 6 and received by 10.30 am on November 7. However, it is not yet clear why government lawyers took so much time to photocopy the report and send it to the government.

Chavan had earlier claimed that what the media was reporting about the report on irregularities in the food supply contracts was from a ‘leaked report’. But when the media brought it to his notice that the report was available on websites, Chavan had no option but to take his words back.