The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), probing the Mithi river desilting scam, Tuesday registered an FIR against five contractors, three Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials, three middlemen, and two private company officials for allegedly causing wrongful loss of over Rs 65.54 crore to the civic body.
The SIT is scrutinising the spending of around Rs 1,100 crore on the Mithi river desilting between 2005 and 2021.
In the FIR registered in connection with the alleged scam, the EOW booked BMC assistant engineer Prashant Ramugade, deputy chief engineers Ganesh Bendre and (Prashant) Tayshette (now retired).
Among the others named in the FIR are Deepak Mohan and Kishore Menon of Matprop Company, Jay Joshi of Virgo Specialties Pvt Ltd , Ketan Kadam of Vodar India LLP and contractor Bhupendra Purohit.
The directors of five contractor companies Acute Designing, Kailash Construction Company, NA Construction, Nikhil Construction, and JRS Infrastructure have also been booked in the case. The case was registered under the relevant sections of the the IPC including for cheating (420), breach of trust (406), forgery (465), and criminal conspiracy (120-B).
Confirming the development, a senior EOW officer said that the agency is carrying out searches at seven locations including residences of civic officials Ramugade, Bendre, and alleged middlemen Joshi, Kadam and Purohit.
The Mithi desilting scam
As per the FIR, initially filed with the Azad Maidan police, the accused conspired to defraud the BMC financially by including terms and conditions in the contract agreement regarding silt pusher machine and multipurpose amphibious pantoon machine.
Bogus document of dumping land
EOW official Tuesday said that while conducting preliminary inquiry (PE), SIT officials came across various financial irregularities pertaining to desilting of Mithi river, transportation of sludge and dumping it on ground, between 2021-22 and 2022-23.
After verifying nine MoUs (Memorandum of Understanding), the officials found that the five contractor companies submitted fake MOUs of dumping sites to the Storm Water Drains (SWD) Division of the BMC.
The officials of the BMC’s SWD division allegedly accepted the bogus documents of the land where nullah silt was supposed to be dumped and allowed the work to continue without due verification.
When the landowners were questioned about this MOU, they said that they had not signed any such MOU and that no silt was dumped on their land, the EOW said. “The accused BMC officer of the SWD division without verifying the authenticity of the dumping sites mentioned in the fabricated MOU helped contractors take disadvantage,” the EOW stated in the FIR.
Accused used names of a land owner who died 20 yrs ago
Since it was certain that no sludge was dumped at the dumping sites, the SWD department paid a total of Rs 45.50 crore to the contractors between 2013 and 2021, falsely claiming that the sludge was removed, the FIR stated.
“Some contracts don’t have proper signatures, some have bogus signatures, in some cases signatures of owners of (sludge dumping) lands are missing and in some cases land owners don’t know that their identities are being misused for bogus contracts. In one instance, they used name of a land owner who died 20 years ago,” said EOW DCP Sangramsinh Nishandar.
EOW officials said that more FIRs may likely be registered in future. EOW will issue notices to the accused persons for questioning, sources said.
BMC officers pushed for renting machines
Mumbai police FIR had alleged that officials of Matprop Technical Services Pvt. Ltd in Kochi visited Mithi river and gave a presentation on the desilting machinery to the BMC, and also invited the engineers of SWD division to study the desilting machinery in Kerala.
Accordingly, a study group consisting of Ganesh Bendre, Deputy Chief Engineer (SWD), Eastern Suburbs, (Prashant) Tayshette, Deputy Chief Engineer (SWD), and Prashant Ramugade and others officers concerned visited Kerala and Delhi in September 2020.
In October 2020, Deepak Mohan of Matprop sent an email to Bendre, Ramugade, BMC’s SWD Division officers along with quotation for the purchase of a silt pusher machine worth approximately Rs 3.07 crore and Multipurpose Amphibious Pontoon Machinery (TUXOR) at a cost of Rs 2.1 crore.
The accused engineers prepared note sheets claiming that the work tenders would mandatorily require these machines.
The note sheet did not mention anything on the purchase of the machines and indirectly forced contractors to hire these machines on rent, DCP Nishandar said. Since only Matprop company provides such machinery in India, the contractor Acute Design contacted them.
Contractors, middlemen and BMC officers met in Mumbai
Deepak Mohan and Ketan Kadam of Matprop, told the contractors that Jay Joshi is the owner of Virgo Specialties Pvt. Ltd and Ketan Kadam is looking after the work of Voder India LLP.
They told the contractors that the Matprop company will do the MOU Undertaking, but the machinery rental agreement will have to be done with Virgo Specialties Pvt. Ltd. and Voder India LLP and the two-year rent of the machinery will be Rs 8 crore. After the negotiations, it was decided to pay a rental of up to Rs 4 crore for two years.
In order to avoid excessive impact of rent on the contractors, the initially fixed rate of Rs 1,609 (per ton of desilting) for the use of these machineries was not applied.
For the year 2021-22, Rs. 2,193 for Silt Pusher Machine and Rs 2,366 for Multipurpose Amphibious Machine was applied. Acute Designs and Tanisha Enterprises were paid at the increased rate resulting in a total excess payment of Rs 17.07 crore, the EOW complaint said.
No scientific study to determine amount of silt
The amount of silt removal for each year has been repeatedly increased from the original amount and this was not determined by scientific investigation. In this way, the tender amount has been increased, thereby benefiting the contractor, the EOW stated.
The SIT is scrutinising the spending of around Rs 1,100 crore on the Mithi river desilting between 2005 and 2021. (Express Archive Photo/ Pradip Das) 
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