K Koushal
Early Times Report
Jammu, July 3: In the wake of numerous scams unearthed in Poonch over the past decade, the enforcement agencies have played mute spectators in terms of monitoring complaints under relevant corruption and bribery cases.
For instance, in 2005 operation "Sarpvinash", also known as Hill Kaka scam, FIR number 14 of 2005 was registered on October 21, 2005 in the Police Station Vigilance Organization Jammu (VOJ). It was said that Hill Kaka area is a remote village of district Poonch and in order to eliminate militants and to destroy the militant hideouts, the security forces launched operation.
To avoid civilian casualty, the people living in the area were evacuated to safer places and families involved were prohibited to visit Hill Kaka for grazing cattle.
Government of India released an amount of Rs 7.40 crore which was placed at the disposal of then DC Poonch Ramzan Thakur who got the entire amount credited in the official bank account of Assistant Commissioner Development Poonch.
It was further alleged that then ACD Poonch Choudhary Mohammad Hafiz was directed to disburse the relief amount among the beneficiaries. It was alleged that lists of affected families entitled for compensation had already been prepared by the concerned Tehsildar on the basis of seasonal permits issued to the migratory families during the year 2001 and 2002.
In this case some of the beneficiaries of village Sanai and Smote were examined during investigation by VOJ who stated that their photographs were collected by Ghulam Rasool, the then Tehsildar Surankote.
Moreover, they were made to sign some withdrawal slips of JCC Bank Surankote, but no relief money was paid to them. It was further alleged that Ghulam Rasool and Mohammad Ayub, the then Patwari, deceitfully opened 13 bank accounts in the name of different beneficiaries and subsequently withdrew money from these accounts through cheques.
In this scam, 283 families to whom the relief was shown paid, the accused public servants prepared ACQ-roll in respect of only 272 families which too was found fraudulently manipulated. The accused public servants were also found to have drawn relief twice in the same of six beneficiaries as such loss of Rs 2, 46, 68, 057 to the state exchequer.
Other than this, Poonch power scam in the year 2013 can't be missed. On January 18, 2013, Poonch region was lashed by snowstorm and heavy rains, many transmission towers and electric poles collapsed and were uprooted, with the result that power supply from 133 KV transmission line was snapped for the entire belt. The magnitude of damage was such that it would not be restored without major operation. The then Chief Minister ordered an enquiry by a committee headed by the Principal Secretary Power, AK Mehta and assisted by experts drawn from the higher echelons of the Department.
The report submitted by Mehta Enquiry Committee was shocking in more than one way. It has unravelled the possibility of a big scam in using sub-standard transmission towers, transmission line and poles. The Enquiry Committee made field study and came to surprising conclusion. It mentioned in its report that there had been a wide network of corrupt engineers, at least 13 of them, who had formed the nexus to cheat the government by showing that only standard material, was used whereas actually they had used sub-standard material which could not stand even the normal snow, rain and wind to which the region is used.
It has come to light that out of three specifications of towers, A1, A2 and A3, costing approximately Rs 18 lakh, 25 lakh and 30 lakh each respectively, actually A1 towers were installed while on the papers A3 were shown to have been installed. Thus in one tower installed, scam computed up to rupees 12 lakh. Further, the towers were not purchased from any one of the three approved contractors but the engineers managed the purchases from unregistered source.
In the case of electric poles, it has been found that sub-standard material was used which could not withstand even four inches of snowfall and were uprooted or folded and rendered unserviceable. This was despite 300 to 400 bags of cement shown to have been used to ground the tower.
Multi Lakh Scam in Social welfare department under Skill Development Program (BADP/TSP) was also unearthed but every agency failed to audit the records. In which blue eyed institutions were assigned with the Skill Development Programmes.
Recently Multi Crore Scam in RDD was unearthed (FIR NO. 8/2018) by VOJ in which crores of rupees were withdrawn frequently under MGNREGA, NCCF, Hashmi Enterprises but once again the scam was hushed up intentionally or unintentionally by the government.
Numerous scams in UEED, BRGF, PMAY need to be scrutinised.
Every department has looted the state exchequer by one way or other. Not even in a single corruption case, corrupts were dealt with iron hands of law. |
