SALEM: Four forest department officials, including Namakkal District Forest Officer (DFO) and a contractor have been booked by Salem DVAC for swindling funds to the tune of Rs 1.69 crore.
According to sources, in 2019, the State government announced that forest roads inside the reserved forest area over a length of 3,350 km will be maintained periodically for the protection of valuable forests and for the welfare of tribals.
The expenditure towards the maintenance of forest roads in Tiruchy and Harur forest divisions was estimated as Rs 57.7 crore for improving and maintaining 107 forest roads at a length of 576.97 km. In order to improve and maintain the forest road from Yercaud foothills to Kadaiyampatti, the estimated cost was Rs 1.69 crore.
However, the suspects divided the tender work into VII stages to avoid publishing the tender advertisement in newspapers. They awarded the tender to Uthirasamy, a resident of Omalur in the Salem district. The contractor did not execute the works, but the bills were fabricated and shown as works were carried out in all the places, sources added.
Based on the inquiry, former Divisional Forest Officer for social forestry and extension of Dharmapuri K Rajangam (at present, he is the DFO for Namakkal district), former deputy conservator of forest HarurV A Saravanan, (presently Divisional Forest Officer, Industrial Wood and Research Division in Tiruchy), forest range officer of forest engineering range in Salem R Murugesan and former forester of Salem G Baskar (presently forester in Dharmapuri) along with the contractor were booked under Sections 120 (b), 167, 406, 420, 465, 468, 471 and 109 of the IPC and Sections 12 and 13 (1) (a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.