Flagrant fraudulence leaves BBMP poorer by Rs50 cr

So could one person, working within a bureaucratic system, sanction large projects without letting senior officials know? Yes, if it is the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) you’re thinking of.

Members of the BBMP standing committee for accounts found on Tuesday that an executive engineer had approved projects worth over Rs50 crore, without so much as signatures from senior officials. An inquiry has been ordered, and legal action will be taken.

On December 15, chairman of the standing committee for accounts of the BBMP, Gangabhairaiah, along with other members of the committee, conducted an inspection at the office of Somashekhar, executive engineer, Pulakeshinagar.

It was found that Somashekar had indulged in fraud in the tender process conducted in the year 2009-10.

Gangabhairaiah explained that the fraud was practiced under a scheme meant for the uplift of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe groups, which has come to be termed the 22.75% scheme.

The proportion of population falling in the SC/ST category has been estimated at 22.75%, and ideally, that is the proportion of funds that should go into schemes for development of SC/ST groups.

Construction of 1,789 houses, 22 concrete roads, and 18 toilets were among the works to be undertaken at Pulakeshinagar under this scheme.

The executive engineer, keen to doctor the whole process in favour of some contractors, divided up the work into bits, and assigned to himself the role of approving authority.

“According to the rules, the tender notification advertisement should appear in the city edition of newspapers; the engineer only advertised the tender in other editions, to avoid competition. Only two contractors bid for the tenders,” Gangabhairaiah explained.

No signatures of the assistant engineer and the assistant executive engineer were sought. Despite that, approval was granted, and there were even errors in the houses constructed.

“The negotiation rates quoted by the contractors were misleading. The executive engineer had not mentioned anything in the agreement. And even the contractor’s signature was missing from the agreement,” the chairman of the BBMP standing committee on accounts said.

Even though the whole tender agreement was illegal and misleading, the chief engineer, SC Jayachandra, had approved the  process.

“The standing committee on accounts has written to BBMP commissioner Siddaiah, with all the relevant documents. We want the commissioner to institute an investigation into the fraud. We will write to the parent department from where this executive engineer was deputed to the BBMP, and ask that he not be allowed to return to it. We have also recommended that the BBMP seize all properties of officials who have caused losses to the BBMP through such fraudulence,” said Gangabhairaiah, explaining what will be done.