Sir,
This refers Daily Excelsior news published on 21/03/2020 under the headings “CBI raids JKEDI Jammu office in multi-crore scam. It is very surprising to see the ibid news that JKEDI blatantly violated the Rules and Regulations while executing the construction works running in several crores. It has been reported that the constructional works have been executed without inviting tenders from the contractors neither through Post/By hand(Under sealed cover)nor through e-tendering. It appears that the said works were not advertised in the News papers just to avoid competition of tender to enable Director of EDI to award the contracts to the favourites.
It is pertinent to mention here that the orders for implementation of calling tenders through e-tendering were introduced by the erstwhile State Government on the basis of guidelines issued by the Central Vigilance commission with the aim to have transparency and fairness in tender system while awarding contracts. It is not understood that how these irregularities committed by the then director remained un noticed for more than four years even when such irregularities were exposed by this newspaper in 2018.It appears that the concerned senior officers sitting at the helm of affairs were in deep slumber. Out of constructional works amounting to 55 crores more than 30 crores of such construction works were executed at Pampore (KMR), so it appears that these works were undertaken under political pressure of the then Government.
Besides committing irregularities in awarding contracts for constructional works it has been reported that serious irregularities have also been noticed while sanctioning loans to the beneficiaries. It has been reported that the then director refinanced the defaulters of Youth Start up Loan Scheme at the cost of genuine entrepreneurs despite having no rehabilitation policy for the units sponsored by the institute. It is very surprising that under NMDFC and YSLS schemes about 220 crores loans have been given on verbal instructions by forcing employees to give loans recklessly without ascertaining credibility of the beneficiaries.
Since the case is now being dealt with by the CBI, it is hoped that the concerned officials/ officers will be dealt with accordingly besides investigating as to whether the irregularities are still being committed or not. CBI may also approach the AG J&K to know the status of Draft Paras if any raised against JKEDI Jammu about the Financial Irregularities committed during the last 10 years .
S S Jamwal
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