CHENNAI: The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) on Monday booked a case against former minister and current AIADMK legislator SP Velumani for alleged corruption in awarding stormwater drain and road work tenders by Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) in 2018.
This is the fourth FIR filed by the state government’s anti-corruption agency against Velumani since DMK came to power in 2021.
The Coimbatore strongman is AIADMK’s headquarters secretary now and was the minister for Local Administration from 2014 to 2021. DVAC’s FIR is based on petitions given by Jayaram Venkatesan, convenor of the NGO Arappor Iyakkam.
Along with Velumani, 10 other retired and serving officials of GCC including former chief engineers M Pugalendi, L Nandakumar have been named as accused in the FIR.
The agency said M Govinda Rao, the then-deputy commissioner (Works) of GCC, was part of the tender scrutiny committee which approved the tenders, but he has not been named as an accused.
DVAC said Velumani and the GCC officials violated all rules of business in allocating tenders and selecting contractors in 2018 which caused a loss of Rs 26.61 crore in just a few tenders analysed by the agency.
The agency began its preliminary inquiry into various tenders including missing link of stormwater drains and restoration of roads and footpaths. It was found that tender transparency rules were violated under the influence and directions of Velumani.
DVAC singled out R Chandrasekar, a youth wing secretary of AIADMK and founder of KCP Engineering for sitting in Velumani’s official residence and deciding the companies to be awarded the tenders.
“This act vitiated and coloured the entire process of transparency in the award of tender. The freedom given by Velumani to Chandrasekar in dealing with GCC officials induced public servants to cause injudicious award of tenders,” the agency said.
The agency said M-sand was used by contractors for these projects, but payment was made on the basis of river sand rates, which were significantly higher.
DVAC also found the rates for ready-mix concrete decided by GCC was abnormally higher than prevailing market rates. In just 53 tenders analysed by DVAC, the alleged corruption in this aspect was Rs 26.61 crore. “Contractors and Greater Chennai Corporation officials colluded with each other to cause loss to the government,” the agency said.
The agency also alleged bid collusion by related parties who won tenders despite submitting bids from the same IP address. Of 73 SWD tender packages, 42 tenderers colluded with each other, pre-fixed them by distributing among themselves by submitting dummy tenders and helped each other win.
The tender scrutiny committee in which the GCC officials named in the FIR were members recommended awarding 71 drain tender packages and 14 road tender packages on the same day at a stroke without proper evaluation, DVAC said. Bidders had quoted abnormally high rates for certain items and low rates for others.