NEW DELHI: The Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) has registered a case against former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and ex-PWD minister Satyendra Jain alleging corruption in construction of classrooms at exorbitant costs, officials said on Wednesday.
According to the ACB, a scam of Rs 2,000 crore unearthed in the construction of 12,748 classrooms/buildings during the tenure of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi.
The complaints from Harish Khurana, Delhi BJP spokesperson, MLA Kapil Mishra, and BJP’s media relations depart Neelkanth Bakshi, were received regarding corruption in construction of around 12,748 school classrooms at an expenditure of Rs 2,892 crore.
The lump sum cost for constructing one school room, as per the awarded tenders, was around Rs. 24.86 lakh per room, whereas such rooms could ordinarily be constructed in Delhi for around Rs five lakh per room. Further, it was alleged that the project was awarded to 34 contractors, majority of whom are allegedly associated with AAP, Joint Commissioner of Police (ACB) Madhur Verma said.
During verification, it was revealed that in the meetings of expenditure finance committee for 2015-16, it was decided that the project would be completed by June 2016 at the sanctioned cost, without any scope for future cost escalations. However, despite these directions, even a single work was not completed within the prescribed time period and significant deviations and cost escalations were observed, Verma said.
During inquiry, it was revealed that the examination report of Chief Technical Examiner, Central Vigilance Commission, in the instant matter was issued on February 17, 2020 with the approval of the competent authority, however, the report was suppressed for about three years.
The report of CTE/CVC raised serious violations of various clauses of the CPWD works manual 2014 GFR 2017, CVC guidelines and other irregularities and also alleged that various decisions taken after the award of tenders were not in accordance with the laid guidelines of CVC and other manuals which lead to huge escalation of cost resulting in financial loss, the officer said.
CVC report also observed that ultimately the actual cost of the constructed SPS was more or less equal to the cost of permanent structures.
It was observed that the tenders were floated and contracts were awarded for Rs 860.63 crore. Subsequently, contract values escalated by 17 per cent to 90 per cent due to richer specifications. The escalation amounted to Rs 326.25 crore, of which Rs 205.45 crore was attributable to richer specifications, comprising 23.87 per cent of the award value. No fresh tenders were invited to reflect these changes, contrary to CVC guidelines. In five schools, work worth Rs. 42.5 crore was executed without proper tenders, using existing contracts, they said.
The competent authority has accorded its approval in filing a case under section 17-A of POC Act. A comprehensive investigation has been launched to unearth whole conspiracy and fix the role and culpability of the alleged ministers, known/unknown government officials/contractors, they added.
