2005-06 rural electrification work: Vigilance probe unravels scam in villages of U.P.’s Hardoi
The vigilance establishment has registered an FIR against six people, including junior engineers, sub-divisional officers of UPPCL and officials of a private electrification company
An inquiry by the U.P. Vigilance Establishment has unravelled a major scam in the work done under Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification and Household Electrification Scheme in 776 villages of Hardoi district between 2005-2006.
The vigilance establishment registered an FIR against six people, including junior engineers, sub-divisional officers (SDOs) of UPPCL and officials of a private electrification company, for criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy and under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 at its Lucknow sector police station on Friday (December 22) to further investigate the scam which is to the tune of several crores of rupees.
A senior vigilance official said the FIR was lodged by vigilance inspector Vikas Chandra Mishra after carrying out an inquiry of work done in merely 85 villages in which scam of ₹1.31 crore surfaced. The official further said the scam was expected to be of several crores if the detailed investigation of work of all 776 villages of Hardoi district and payment cleared was conducted.
As per the FIR, the inspector had initially accused six people, including UPPCL junior engineers Baijnath Singh, Naresh Singh, SDOs Devendra Joshi and Amjad Ali and SDO (electricity distribution) Pramod Anand and senior manager of private electrification company, Ashok Kumar Dubey, who was the project manager of the work.
The official mentioned in the FIR that the vigilance inquiry was initiated on August 31, 2017, in which it was discovered that the procurement of poles, transformers and other electrical equipment was done from the private electrification company.
He said the UPPCL engineers measured and calculated the procured material and the same was verified by the SDOs but during the vigilance inquiry it came to fore that the procurement was less while the payment was cleared for more than the procured material and this caused loss to the government exchequer.
He said the vigilance establishment will now probe criminal connivance of government servants and private company officials in causing loss to the state exchequer to get monetary benefits.
