IITM muddle out in the open, dark clouds over top brass

The raid, say scientists, at least focused on a national institute “where several objectionable activities were being carried on blatantly.”

Over 300 scientists feeling “suffocated and humiliated” at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology have begun to breathe somewhat easy. The reason was last week’s CBI raid, long expected. The raid, say scientists, at least focused on a national institute “where several objectionable activities were being carried on blatantly.”

They allege corruption in recruitment process, construction work and procurement of costly equipment. As many as 22 sleuths of the anti-corruption wing of the CBI conducted searches at the IITM last week for nearly 16 hours and took into possession several files, documents and hard disks. The examination of hard disks revealed that exam papers for a recruitment examination of 2014, along with answers, were leaked.

The CBI raided IITM premises followed several complaints of malpractice and corruption in the recruitment process. They questioned director B N Goswami to collect information and documents. The raid was apparently conducted after inputs from some scientists. On Monday, CBI filed corruption cases against three employees, one of whom is Chhabi Bardhan. The CBI issued a lookout notice against Chhabi who remained untraced for three days.

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Chhabi had retired from IITM at 60, which was the norm for government servants. Scientists allege Chhabi’s service term was extended twice in four years. Chhabi began as a steno, became personal assistant to the director and the latest position she held was of an LACD (Looking After Current Duties) manager.

“She was appointed LACD manager as the administrative officer and accounts manager were on leave for four months. She was handling projects involving crores of rupees…How can you appoint a retired person who has no knowledge of accounts and administration to such key positions?” asked a senior scientist, one of those who wrote the complaint to CBI. Bardhan was allegedly given two promotions in six months.

Scientists alleged that Bardhan called the shots — at the behest of Goswami in all IITM matters including administrative and financial. “In fact, director Goswami had once declared that he doesn’t know anything about the administration, that’s why Bardhan will look after it…,” a scientist said.

Demanding a thorough probe, scientists alleged that IITM practised favouritism in the last four years. “At least 50 scientists who are Bengalis have been recruited while scientists from Maharashtra and other parts have been ignored. There should be a thorough probe against the director as well…We were long feeling humiliated and uneasy. The CBI action is welcome, but half-hearted. CBI should probe the top brass…”

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Scientists say Goswami retired from service, but was given an extension but “under which norm, nobody knows.” The CBI also filed cases against IITM transport cell in-charge Sanjay Hansale and an upper divisional clerk Amit Kumar. Ironically, Hansale is slated to get “the best performance award” from the Ministry of Earth Sciences on July 27.

Scientists allege that anybody who spoke in favour of IITM top brass got out-of-turn promotions, those who did not were given instant memos. “Scientists have been demeaned by putting them in departments which had nothing to do with qualification.. A scientist who had a Masters in Library Science is in the security department…”

A scientist said, “There is corruption at every level. We urge CBI to probe procurement of supercomputer and a costly Doppler Radar used for prediction of monsoon. CBI must inquire whether all standards were met when the equipment was procured.” Goswami’s cellphone was switched off. A Newsline team was denied permission to enter IITM premises to meet Goswami.

Sushant Kulkarni

Sushant Kulkarni is a Special Correspondent with The Indian Express in Pune with 12+ years of experience covering issues related to Crime, Defence, Internal Security and Courts. He has been associated with the Indian Express since July 2010. Sushant has extensively reported on law and order issues of Pune and surrounding area, Cyber crime, narcotics trade and terrorism. His coverage in the Defence beat includes operational aspects of the three services, the defence research and development and issues related to key defence establishments. He has covered several sensitive cases in the courts at Pune. Sushant is an avid photographer, plays harmonica and loves cooking. ... Read More

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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CBI
Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology