Govt fails to act against EE SMC on ACB recommendations
Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR July 2: The administration has failed to act on the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) recommendation of Regular Departmental Action (RDA) against Executive Engineer Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) in a major fraud under which the Mayor of Srinagar, Junaid Azim Mattoo, had allotted at least 50 works to different contractors in Srinagar and after the execution of the works tenders were floated to legalise the works.
The ACB had recommended RDA against then Executive Engineer SMC, Ghulam Mohammad Dar, three months back but so far no action has been taken against him. “…Regular Departmental Action may be initiated against the delinquent public servant namely Ghulam Mohammad Dar, then EE Right River Works Division SMC Srinagar now posted in JK Housing Board as EE for adopting a wrong procedure to clear the bills of contractors”, read the letter addressed by the SP ACB to Commissioner/Secretary, General Administration Department.
The ACB had proposed that fact finding committee may be constituted to fix responsibility of officials for non-tendered works by SMC.
The verification (ACB/Veri-SLK-22/2020-4755-57 Dated 09-03-2021) conducted by the ACB reveals that in 2019, 50 works were executed in the SMC on the direction of Mayor and later the NIT was floated just to legalise the payments.
“…the works were put on physical inspection by expert team of SMC, as per report of which the works stand executed before publishing of NIT, thus reflects that the intention behind floating of tenders was to legalize the payments of those works…”, read the letter.
“The NIT along with allotments were timely cancelled. In fact, wrong procedure was adopted for clearance of payments against works so executed earlier and too without following codal formalities by the SMC authorities”, the document further stated.
“During the course of verification, the concerned officers/officials of Right River Division SMC Srinagar were contacted. They intimated ignorance about the execution of such works prior to publishing of NIT-14, as neither they prepared any type of DPR/estimate for a work in their area of responsibilities nor informed by any senior officer like EE etc. besides this, some of the contractors were questioned who stated to have executed such works on the direction of Junaid Matoo then Mayor SMC Srinagar during Parliamentary election-2019”, read the letter.
“By considering the whole facts found during probe, it emerged that all the works were executed on the directions of Mayor of SMC as an election trend… For drawing payments genuinely, the Mayor directed Commissioner SMC to float tenders for works which were already executed, pursuant to which NIT-14 was floated by Ghulam Mohammad Dar, the then EE Right River Works Division SMC Srinagar. This was done to cover up the non-tendered works. The contracts were awarded to the same contractors who had earlier executed the works. The NIT along with allotments were later on cancelled by him, after hue and cry by other contractors”, read the letter.
“The works were executed by different contractors in and around Dal Lake area. These contractors claimed payments, a meeting was conducted by Mayor SMC wherein he directed Commissioner SMC to execute the works as per list provided, who further directed EE to execute the works as per order dated 29.10.19 with certain conditions. The EE right river works division SMC Srinagar without obtaining ground report and estimate etc, floated NIT No. 14 of 2019-20 date 9.12.19 for the works which were directed by Mayor to be executed, made allotments to contractors. The allotment of the same works were made by then EE, the other contractors started complaining and the NIT No. 14 of 2019-20 tender was subsequently cancelled”, the letter read.
“…Allotments, however, wrong procedure was adopted for clearance of payments against works so executed earlier and too without following codal formalities for which, the said EE namely Ghulam Mohammad Dar is responsible for departmental action”, the letter read.
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