State government probing why then Finance Minister showered favours on the ASBDC and granted it an out-of-turn grant of Rs 600 cr
Mumbai : While the Crime Investigation Department (CID) in its investigation report had indicted NCP legislator Ramesh Kadam for siphoning off government money through Annabhau Sathe Backward Development Corporation (ASBDC), the information that Kadam has revealed is likely to bring the likes of senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar too on the radar, sources have revealed.
The state government is inquiring as to why the then Finance Minister Pawar showered favours on the ASBDC and granted it an out-of-turn grant of Rs 600 crore, highly places sources have said.
In the Rs 526-crore ASBDC scam, Kadam stands accused for splurging money for buying property in his personal name as well as purchasing luxury cars for NCP workers and leaders forging papers.
When asked, minister of state for social welfare Dilip Kamble confirmed that the state government is investigating in detail why the then government went out of the way to provide funds to the corporation. “We will not spare anyone who will be found involved in the scam,” said Kamble, whose department oversees the working of ASBDC.
Kamble, however, refused to take any names when asked whether Pawar was under the scanner. “Everyone who was associated with the procedure of sanctioning funds to the corporation is under our lens,” he said.
According to a senior government official, it was Pawar’s sole decision to sanction huge funds for the ASBDC. “Normally, a decision on sanctioning funds is taken by a sub-committee. However, in this case it has been revealed that Pawar alone had taken the decision,” he said.
The state’s former deputy chief minister, Pawar is already facing charges of graft in the state’s infamous irrigation scam. However, the scam in ASBDC could be one with strong documentary evidence against him. Pawar was Water Resources Minister for almost a decade before he handled Finance and Power portfolios.
The CID has found that Kadam has purchased a spacious residential property in the city’s Peddar Road area for a whopping Rs 125 crore for personal use. The agency has not revealed details of the property but has initiated an inquiry into how the payment was made.
The CID also has found that Kadam got much of the money, which was shown to be distributed by the ASBDC as loans to members from the weaker sections of the society, transferred to his own bank accounts. In some cases, he collected the money in cash, the officials said.
In some cases, loans were distributed for purchasing small commercial vehicles, but instead luxury cars were purchased and distributed among NCP workers and leaders.
Kamble said that the police have recovered several abandoned luxury cars in the past few days. “The NCP workers also have shown interest in paying off their cars’ price to escape from the clutches of law. They claimed that they were unaware that those cars were purchased from the ASBDC money,” he said.
Abhijit Mulye
