Mumbai : What happens to officials involved in a Rs 100-crore scam? If you are a BMC engineer, all you face is suspension. So it was on Tuesday when Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte merely suspended nine engineers indicted in a preliminary probe by the BMC.
These engineers are suspected to have manipulated computer data to beat the e-tendering system introduced by Kunte to eliminate corruption.
In fact, everyone feels that the BMC must lodge an FIR with the police in the case. “In such a case, if there is enough evidence against the accused, an FIR can be filed against them and criminal proceedings can be initiated,” said ex-municipal commissioner Subodh Kumar.
He believes that the original CWC system for awarding contracts for minor works was also functioning properly but refused to comment on the efficiency of the e-tendering system, introduced under Kunte’s regime.
Nothing apart from the e-tendering scam was discussed in the general body meeting on Tuesday. Kunte’s statement in the meeting said that the e-tendering process was used to file 17,000 tenders amounting to Rs 600 crore. But of these, 412 tenders worth Rs 22 crore were opened within the first 24 hours, which means these are the ones under the scanner. Since 229 of the 412 tenders have already been cancelled by assistant commissioners and 183 minor works have been completed, the entire scam is now pegged at Rs 9.26 crore.
The scam came into light about a fortnight ago after which a committee was formed under Deputy Municipal Commissioner Vasant Prabhu to probe the matter. As of now, the committee has found prima facie evidence against nine of the 23 engineers who will face suspension while the others will face a departmental inquiry.
Similarly, the 40 contractors who have benefited from the scam have been blacklisted. The BMC has now dissolved any rights the engineers had about controlling the timing of the e-tendering process to make it completely digitised.
Slamming the administration for not initiating criminal proceedings against the accused, corporators from most of the political parties have demanded a third-party probe. Opposition leader Devendra Amberkar called this suspension a deliberate move to misguide the House and said, “E-tendering was Kunte’s project, so shouldn’t his role be probed too?”
MNS Corporator Sandeep Deshpande said, “How can the accused probe himself? And is this a move to scuttle the e-tendering system to bring back the old CWC system?”
Leader of Standing Committee Yashodhar Phanse said that the leader of the House and leader of opposition should have been taken into confidence for the investigation while ex-Mayor Sunil Prabhu demanded that the role of ABM, the consultancy firm which designed the software, be probed.
