Desilting scam: 11 engineers among 14 suspended by BMC

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A civic official, requesting anonymity, said, “All false documents provided by the contractors have been certified by officials. We have asked respective departments to conduct an inquiry on all officials involved in favouring contractors. They have been suspended indefinitely.”

Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta had ordered an inquiry following massive floods on June 18-19 earlier this year. The five-member committee had submitted a report in September. According to the 145-page report, contractors forged documents and provided fake bills to support their claims of desilting. Some contractors showed vehicles plying for 20 hours at a stretch, while in some cases one vehicle was shown at two different locations at the same time, said the report.

Though the tender documents mandated that checkposts must be established at various spots, the contractors had not followed the norms. The report mentions vehicles that have made eight rounds at two separate sites in the same day. The panel investigated documents from nine of 32 contractors. Among them, 226 trucks made 26,838 rounds to transport 2.38 lakh cubic metres of silt.

The report had turned into a political play with all the major parities indulging in a blame game for the mess. Following the report, Mehta had promised strict action against all the civic officials and the contractors involved in the scam at the standing committee meeting two weeks earlier.

tanushree.venkatraman
@expressindia.com