Lagatar24 Desk
Ranchi: A shocking revelation has emerged regarding alleged corruption within Jharkhand’s Drinking Water Department, indicating the misappropriation is not just Rs 22.86 crore, as initially suspected, but around Rs 200 crore. The scam involves inflated bill payments made against genuine bills submitted by Larsen & Toubro (L&T).
Engineer Niranjan Kumar, stationed in Ranchi for over 15 years, reportedly exercises considerable influence over more than a dozen senior departmental officials. The details surfaced through documents and responses submitted to the department by accused official Santosh Kumar.
Santosh Kumar, in his reply to the government, explicitly stated that schemes executed as “deposit works” by the Urban Development Department witnessed fraudulent transactions amounting to Rs 200 crore.
According to Santosh, L&T was chosen as the executing agency for urban water supply schemes. Department engineers allegedly used the company as a front to withdraw sums significantly exceeding actual billed amounts.
Santosh highlighted that the original agreement for the urban water supply scheme with L&T was for Rs 290 crore, alongside a supplementary agreement worth Rs 64.34 crore, totaling Rs 354.78 crore. However, departmental engineers reportedly colluded to pay Rs 264.15 crore against the original agreement and Rs 60.89 crore for the supplementary agreement, resulting in total payments of Rs 325.04 crore.
Further evidence provided by Santosh revealed that L&T submitted actual bills amounting only to Rs 21.61 lakh for the original agreement and Rs 3.77 lakh for the supplementary agreement, totaling merely Rs 25.39 lakh. Thus, there is a vast discrepancy between the payments made and the genuine bills submitted.
Santosh also accused department engineers of fabricating measurement books to justify inflated payments, copying exact specifications from the Bill of Quantity (BQ).
He further detailed fraudulent withdrawals of residual funds by showing fictitious deviation works. Such withdrawals reportedly involved a 20% commission for the Superintendent Engineer, with the remaining 80% shared among other engineers and officers.
Santosh cited specific instances, including the withdrawal of Rs 28.98 lakh leftover from work done by Praveen Jain, allegedly approved by Superintendent Engineer Niranjan Kumar, and processed by Executive Engineer Chandrashekhar Singh, Divisional Accounts Officer Parmanand Kumar, and Bill Clerk Sanjay Kumar.
He also mentioned fraudulent withdrawals from a Rs 3.28 crore work awarded to Anand Enterprises. Santosh asserted that Engineer Niranjan Kumar has dominated the department for the past 15 years, having considerable influence over numerous senior officials in Jharkhand.
