News: Gurugram civic body to probe Rs 50 crore C&D waste fraud by private firm-20-12-2021
Officials said the probe panel was formed by commissioner Mukesh Kumar Ahuja following directions from the urban local bodies department.
GURUGRAM: A four-member committee has been formed by the municipal commissioner to probe alleged irregularities in the collection, transportation and dumping of construction and demolition (C&D) waste by a private firm hired by the civic body in 2019. It has been alleged that the corruption, which could be “worth Rs 50 crore”, involves senior MCG officials. As part of its probe, the committee will have to find out if an approval had been taken from the government or any other competent authority before handing out the work to the private firm and whether bills submitted by the agency to MCG were justified or not. The company will also have to explain why C&D waste can still be found along various roads of the city.
Officials said the probe panel was formed by commissioner Mukesh Kumar Ahuja following directions from the urban local bodies department. The alleged irregularities came to light after an RTI activist lodged a complaint, accusing former and current officials of MCG of being hand-in-glove with the private firm in approving inflated bills. The probe committee has in it Satish Yadav, joint commissioner (3); Thakur Lal Sharma, chief engineer; Vijay Kumar, chief accounts officer; and Savita Choudhry, district attorney. They will have to prepare a report in 10 days. “The executive engineer-SBM will provide the necessary documents and the records thereto to the aforementioned committee. The committee shall examine all aspects of the matter and submit a detailed report within 10 days,” read the order issued by Ahuja. The MCG commissioner did not respond to repeated calls and messages on the magnitude of the alleged corruption. The RTI activist has, however, alleged that the work of the private firm was not monitored by the citizen supervisory committee, and it wrongly showed the dumping sites in zones 1 and 2 when they should have been either the Basai waste plant or any other site in zones 3 and 4. It was also alleged that the company wrongly showed 1,000 entries of vehicles for collecting and transporting C&D waste. None of these vehicles, as mentioned in the entry records, had a Haryana registration but were all from Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, according to the complaint. The activist alleged that not only were the entries of vehicles “forged”, but the weight of the waste they carried was also inflated to manipulate the bills. “A majority of these vehicles are of Rajasthan or Uttar Pradesh according to the registration numbers. By showing forged entries and paying the same by MCG, the company has created a record of largest collection of C&D Waste in India by this C&D Waste contractor collecting more waste per day than garbage collection per day,” the complaint submitted in September read. A copy was also sent to the chief minister’s office. The activist also alleged that at an MCG meeting in February last year, senior officials said there was no need to enter invoices in the measurement book and that the bills submitted by the private firm were sufficient to make payments. According to the complaint, no measurement slip was submitted for 14 months in 2020 and 2021, which included the lockdown period. An MCG official, however, dubbed the allegations baseless. “There are GPS records of the vehicles carrying C&D waste, verified slips of the weighing scale and all other data that needs to be maintained. The papers will be submitted during the probe,” the official said.
