Tender Scam: Tender Scam: Raj Govt Springs To Action After Central Agency Probe | Jaipur News

Jaipur: Investigation, initiated by a central agency, had compelled the state government to become suddenly ‘active’ in the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) tender scam case that had created much furore in June.

On Friday, the special committee, appointed by the state government, had found the allegations against the two companies in the case to be true. The committee had ordered the chief engineer (JJM) of the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) to cancel all tenders of these two companies. Earlier, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) had booked a few contractors and engineers in an anti-graft case in the Alwar district.
While Padam Chand Jain, owner of one of these two companies, had been arrested, Mahesh Mittal, owner of the second company, had been declared absconding in this case.

“Initially, the government had conducted an inquiry and gave a clean chit to these two companies. Then it formed this company. It seemed that government was taking a ‘kill time’ policy. However, suddenly the government has become active against the two contractors involved in the tender scam. There are reports that a central government’s agency had started a probe and had interrogated a few engineers associated with the tender process,” said an official, who is close to the development.
According to allegations, the two contractors, Ganapati Tubewell Company and Shri Shyam Tubewell Company, had managed to bag tenders for JJM projects by submitting fake certificates of ICRON, a central government undertaking. A lawyer first brought this allegation by sending three legal notices to the department.
The chief engineer (Urban and NRW) had directed ACE Region II to examine the facts of these legal notices. Accordingly, in April, an executive engineer of Shahpura division had went to Kerala personally to verify the facts and the allegations. The executive engineer brought a copy of the clean chit for the certificates in question from a CEO of IRCON CEO.
“Although the lawyer had withdrawn the case, chief vigilance officer of IRCON had wrote a letter to PHED on July 6 raising the same allegations. Even BJP Rajya Sabha MP Kirori Lal Meena also conducted protest movement following the letter from the IRCON’s CVO. This is when the government formed the high-level investigation committee during a finance committee meeting of PHED,” said another official.