Mumbai road scam: Arrested engineer had been under scanner in Sara Sahara illegal construction case

Uday Murudkar, chief engineer of the vigilance department, who was already under suspension in the drain desilting scam, had also been suspended.

Murudkar and Pawar were suspended for their alleged failure to supervise the operations, leading to the poor quality of road works.

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The report had stated: “On an average, there have been 53 per cent irregularities in the road works. In certain cases, it has been revealed that the irregularities have from 38 per cent to 100 per cent.”

Sources in the civic body said Pawar was also under the scanner in the Sara Sahara scam, involving illegally granted permissions for various constructions in the Sara Sahara shopping centre allegedly owned by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

“He was one of the 12 engineers indicted by an internal inquiry then, but was later cleared of the charges,” said a senior officer requesting anonymity.

Pawar, who took over the roads department in 2014, was shunted out by Mehta in October last year. Officials said the sudden transfer of Pawar was seen as a fallout of corruption allegations and shoddy work by the department.

Pawar was then given the charge of building and maintenance department. Prior to taking over as chief engineer roads, Pawar was with the roads department as the deputy chief engineer, said an official.

Murudkar, chief engineer of vigilance department, who was already under suspension in the Rs 150-crore desitling scam, was suspended again in the road scam.
In both the cases, Murudkar has been found guilty of ‘failure to keep proper checks and supervise the work’. Officials said that Murudkar had been the heading the department for close to three years and had been deputy chief engineer in the vigilance department earlier.

Apart from these two chief engineers’ arrests, the police have so far arrested 22 persons, all junior staff, attached with the two third-party auditors and six contractor firms. All are now out on bail.

It has been revealed that the site engineers of the contractors were entrusted with the work of digging and transporting the soil and road construction layers.

These site engineers, despite knowing about the deficiencies in the work, are reported to have made false entries of various layers of roads in the level sheet.

Also, these fake entries were certified by the staff of the two-third party auditors, stating that the work had been carried out as per the standards.

Then, it was submitted to the roads engineers of the BMC, who allegedly connived with the roads contractors and submitted the fake bills for payment.

Officials from the civic body said it has initiated departmental inquiry against Murudkar, while it will soon issue a charge sheet to Pawar. “Also, the work of fixing the responsibilities in case of these 34 roads is going on. After fixing the responsibility, action will be taken against the engineers concerned,” said an official.