BANGALORE: The state government is about to promote as chief engineer a superintending engineer allegedly involved in a multi-crore public works scandal.
According to Public Works Department sources, the name of D Udayshankar is on an August 30 list of six superintending engineers selected for promotion to the rank of chief engineer.
Superintending Engineers K F Hulkund, Ravindra L Kalyani and Balasubramanyam are also on the list. The Departmental Promotion Committee is likely to meet and approve the list in a day or two.
The Lokayukta police had conducted a probe after the media reported that road works worth `600 crore had been broken up into hundreds of piece-work contracts of below `20 lakh to bypass the tendering process. They had filed a chargesheet against 33, including many government officials, engineers and contractors.
The chargesheet, which runs into 1.74 lakh pages with 181 volumes of documents, states that the state government released `236.12 crore for the Magadi sub-division in 2011-12. Sub-division officials had released `137 crore to contractors, out of which `56.72 crore was allegedly misused, causing a loss to the exchequer.
The Lokayukta police had also sought the state government’s sanction for the prosecution of 13 officials, including D Udayshankar, in July. “The state government has not given its sanction yet and it is unfortunate if any of them is promoted while the request for prosecution is pending,” Lokayukta ADGP H N Satyanarayana Rao said.
The state government should have suspended the official instead of recommending him for promotion, said a senior PWD official, expressing his dismay.
PWD Principal Secretary M R Kamble, when asked about the move, said decisions on promotion to the rank of chief engineer were beyond his jurisdiction.
The PWD officials against whom the Lokayukta has sought sanction for prosecution in this case are: Secretary Sadashivareddy B Patil, Internal Financial Advisor Govindaraju, Superintending Engineer D Udayashankar, Assistant Executive Engineers A Nataraju, G S Siddalingakumar and S V Srinivas, Assistant Engineers H S Venkatesh, Kantharaju, K R Anandkumar, K C Prabhakar, T V Mukundan, V Krishna and Cash Clerk Puttaswamy.