VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, May 10: IAS Pooja Singhal has denied the allegation that she was ever involved in or patronized corruption in the MNREGA scheme during her tenure as the deputy commissioner of Khunti district where she was posted from February 2009 till July 2010.
On being summoned Pooja Singhal turned up for questioning at the ED office on Tuesday at 11 AM. The first round of questioning was related to her posting in Khunti as DC. She said that she was given a clean chit by the state government following a prolonged departmental inquiry conducted by the then principal secretary of drinking water and sanitation Amrendra Pratap Singh. She said that she had submitted her reply to the inquiry committee and she was absolved of charges.
A scam worth over Rs 18.06 Crore took place in Khunti where the mastermind was junior engineer Ram Binod Prasad Sinha. A total of 16 FIRs were lodged related to scams in MNREGA and other developmental projects. The Vigilance Bureau now referred to as the Anti-Corruption Bureau took up only two cases and none of these were related to the MNREGA scam. The ED took up an investigation against Ram Binod Sinha and recorded his statement.
Ram Binod Sinha told the ED that he used to pay 5 percent of the project cost as commission to his seniors on the engineering side and an additional 5 percent of the project cost as a commission towards the administration side consisting of the DC Office and the DDA/NDC office. He said that no commission was paid by him directly to the DC, and as per his knowledge, it was taken care of from the 5 % commission given to the district administration and he further stated that Pooja Singhal was the acting DC of Khunti. Sinha also named MD/DRDA Pradip Kindo and NDC Abhay Nandan Ambasth as go-betweens.
Ambasth during questioning, denied the allegation and claimed that Sinha had frequent interactions with Pooja Singhal, hence he was not required to act as a medium to hand over the bribe amount.
When asked, Pooja Singhal denied the allegations and said that the probe agency should not give so much credence to the statement of Ram Binod Sinha, RK Jain, and others who have been charged with corruption.
She was also asked to explain why as a programme coordinator of MNREGA she gave so much importance to Ram Binod Sinha who was super overloaded with project work and heavy payment in advance. She said that officially or privately she never extended any undue favour to any person while discharging her role as DC of the district. Asked why she assigned MNREGA-related works to Ram Binod Sinha only despite he was facing a defalcation case. Asked whether she ever conducted an inquiry into objections raised by her subordinates she said that she needs to remember.
