No action against RNN ex-MD, Lokayukta nudges Gov

“A few days after my report reached the CM’s office, I was informed by the Vigilance Department that my recommendations have been forwarded to the Public Works Department, which will inform me about the action taken. I have not received any report from the PWD since then,” Mehrotra told The Sunday Express.

In his report, Mehrotra had found Singh guilty under the Prevention of Corruption Act for awarding construction works worth Rs 858.95 crore to several contractors, some of whom “got undue favours”, and incurring the state exchequer “a loss of about 25 per cent of the total cost” which was the direct result of “delayed completion of projects, several revisions of the projects’ costs and lending of advance to the construction firms without any agreement for the loan”.

In the same report, the Lokayukta had also recommended disciplinary action against three RNN engineers – A K Gautam, A K Pandey and Shailendra Pratap Singh.

Mehrotra had conducted the inquiry after a lawyer (Arunendra Mohan Shukla) alleged that Singh had amassed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income during his tenure as the RNN’s MD, about the time when RNN handled most of the construction works involving memorials, parks and statues under the BSP regime.

Based on the findings, Mehrotra recommended that the UP government initiate its own inquiry into Singh’s assets acquired between 2007 and 2012 and prosecute him for corruption.

He said his recommendation to the state government to confiscate Singh’s assets had come after obtaining an order from the prosecution court.

Of the 16 projects of RNN that the Lokayukta probed, as many as five (total cost of which stood at Rs 101.8 crore) were awarded to other construction firms without inviting any tenders. The Lokayukta’s findings also reveal that five projects worth Rs 274.34 crore were given to construction firms by issuing tenders against specifications mandated by the PWD.