THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If there is a per-kilometre rate of corruption, the Public Works Department’s Aluva circle office certainly has a legitimate claim for entry into the hall of shame. A recent inspection found that Rs 1.47 crore had been ‘swallowed up’ through officer-contractor nexus in the name of unexecuted works on a 3.20-km stretch.
According to the government’s Finance Inspection Wing (FIW), the erring officers fabricated records to show that three chipping works were executed on the 3.20-km stretch of the Edappally-Muvattupuzha Road in 2016. Chipping work -- which is laying of gravel -- costs Rs 25 lakh per km.
Based on the FIW report, the PWD has suspended Latha Mankesh, executive engineer, Ponkunnam division of KSTP, Manoj K M, assistant engineer with NH sub-division office, Kozhikode and Shelmi M A, junior superintendent, Kozhikode building division. These officers had served under the Aluva circle office at the time of the fraud.
“As per the office records, the work was executed 15 days before a major reconstruction of the road using BMBC (bitumen macadam and bitumen concrete). They presumed that the fraud will go unnoticed as BMBC too involves chipping work,” said an FIW officer.
Though, BMBC work was not done on a tile-paved portion of the road, the contractor was paid for this as well.
The Aluva section officers misappropriated Rs 15 lakh in the name of emergency repair work ahead of Aluva Sivaratri festival. Here also, the work remained on paper. “The records showed that repair work was carried out on municipal roads as well. The PWD office was not entrusted with work of roads owned by LSGs,” FIW officers said.
Unholy nexus
Most of the corruption cases which have come to light at the office involved a contractor who enjoyed several unofficial privileges. As per the government norm, a contractor can possess only one A class licence to execute public work.
But this man held two A class licences in his name -- one A class licence in the name of a paper firm in which he and his father held 99 per cent and one per cent stake, respectively.
Three other B and C class licences were held in the name of paper firms co-owned by the father-son duo. The officials were aware of the illegal licences held by the particular contractor.
The officer-contractor nexus used these licences to sabotage fair tender procedures.
According to the FIW, several works were bagged by the contractor through tenders in which all the bids were placed by the same contractor using his different licences.