Solapur cops draw a blank, probe now with CID

Three months after Solapur District Collector Manisha Varma stumbled upon the Rs 9.1-crore fraud in the Employment Gurantee Scheme (EGS) and...

Three months after Solapur District Collector Manisha Varma stumbled upon the Rs 9.1-crore fraud in the Employment Gurantee Scheme (EGS) and lodged three police complaints, the State government has transferred the investigation to the State Criminal Investigation Department (CID) after the local police failed to make any headway in the case.

Ever since the fraud was detected, arrest warrants have been issued against a clerk from the EGS branch and two officers in the state agriculture department. The three are absconding.

Home Department officials confirmed that the investigations would be monitored by Pune-based Additional Director General of Police (CID) Jayant Umranikar. He has assigned DSP A D Patil to investigate the case.

State CID officials said although they were yet to receive documents pertaining to the investigation from the Solapur Police, the department’s top brass has begun stock-taking. Umranikar and Patil met Varma today and were briefed about the extent and nature of corruption she had unearthed. Varma confirmed she was in Pune. ‘‘Since the CID does not have background of the investigations so far, I have come to explain the relevant details.’’

The fraud was detected when Varma found that labour attendance at EGS works had crossed one lakh and the number of works under way appeared far higher than she had approved. Her inquiries revealed that work was doled out to fictitious names. Even the dead were not spared. While in a number of cases, Varma’s signature was forged to get works approved, local officers manipulated the muster rolls and even signed for illiterate labourers in English.

Varma immediately stopped the 1,034 EGS works under way and filed three complaints with the Solapur Police. Two days after the first complaint, Varma was transferred to Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development. The transfer was stayed a day later. Varma then drew a plan to conduct reading of muster rolls in several villages but had to face opposition — from the local agriculture department staff to Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

Soon after, EGS secretary Ramesh Kanadean was asked to probe the fraud. The report is awaited. With citizens and RTI (Right to Information Act) activists keeping up the pressure, Deshmukh had to relent and order fresh reading of muster rolls.