SHILLONG: A massive Rs 2,366-crore Meghalaya road construction project has plunged squarely into a criminal investigation due to serious charges of corruption and collusion between state engineers and private contractors.
The charges were made public on Monday, October 21, which immediately led to legal action.
The case involves nine people-people who are senior engineers of the Public Works Department and also some officials from private contracting firms based in Telangana and Haryana.
According to the FIR, these accused conspired to commit various kinds of malpractice in the construction of a major highway connecting Shillong to Tura via Nongstoin and Rongjeng.
The FIR has been filed by PWD Chief Engineer AM Kharmawphlang, who filed the complaint based on evidence unearthed in arbitration proceedings already in progress.
The charges levied are that the officers and contractors had faked records, indulged in cheating, and were into corrupt practices resulting in huge washout of public funds. It is being investigated at what level malpractices have been perpetrated relating to this prestige infrastructure project.
The much-hyped Rs 2,366 crore road construction project passed under the aegis of Special Road Development Programme-North East in 2010 now finds itself caught in a criminal probe with allegations of widespread corruption.
This project will connect all four cities between Shillong, Nongstoin, Rongjeng, and Tura. The fact that this project has gone so high in terms of cost increase from the initial budget of Rs 1,303 crore to Rs 2,366 crore over the course of multiple revisions in cost is surprising. Although completed on its scheduled date in 2014, the road has yet not seen a light of its end, but has instead raised a hue and cry regarding mismanagement and fraud.
According to the FIR, it has been mentioned that a group of senior engineers and PWD officials along with some contractors from Telangana and Haryana private companies have indulged in fraudulent activities.
The FIR particularly incriminates all these persons of hatching a conspiracy to loot money through manipulation of accounts, overstating costs and cheating the state government, thus inflicting heavy losses on the public exchequer.
An appropriate police investigation is warranted to effectively trace the whole gamut of the alleged conspiracy and corruption.
The FIR is a result of arbitration proceedings initiated by private contractors whose reversion application relating to the revision of a contact was rejected by the PWD. There was prima facie evidence enough to attract PWD Chief Engineer AM Kharmawphlang's attention to file an FIR. The allegations are that officials and contractors were on a spree of seizing opportunities through loopholes in the system for pecuniary gain through price escalations in project costs, leaving half the road project hanging in mid-air.
The police have confirmed that an investigation into a full scale is now underway as they work towards details of the multi-crore scam while bringing those involved to book.
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