SHILLONG: Congress MLA and former Chief Minister Mukul Sangma has termed the Saubhagya scheme as a model item for political bosses and officials to loot the state alleging corruption in the implementation of the scheme.
Addressing reporters here on Tuesday, he said the implementation of Saubhagya scheme had resulted in a deep scam because of the deep criminal conspiracy of all the people involved in the government.
He said the scheme had pushed the state into a deep scam starting with the manipulation of bidding documents to favour pre-determined identified contractors.
He also alleged awarding of contract under the scheme in more than 50 per cent of the total estimated project cost while there are other projects under other programmes that are in the process of implementation with the same rate.
He alleged deep-rooted corruption taking place in the government functioning particularly in the Power department that has created a mess.
He said, “The MeECL is not in a position to take care of its own financial requirements. The first controversy is that the whole terms and conditions in the bidding documents were manipulated, it is designed to ensure that they can favour pre-identified bidders.”
He asserted that that there had been public discussion that expressed concern about the fiscal health of the state, the capacity of the state to fund various programmes initiated by the government and the capacity of the government to respond to the expectations and aspirations of the people including paying the pending bills of the contractors who are implementing the various programmes of the government.
“Contractors are not encouraged by the development,” he said.
Again, pointing to another anomaly, Sangma said that since there were limited bidders qualifying for the project, he said that the bidders could manipulate the total cost of the project.
“The award of contract is more than 50 per cent of the total estimated project cost while there are other projects under other programmes are in the process of implementation with the same rate,” he said.
He informed that the tender value was Rs 1, 73, 60, 00, 000 and the allotted amount was Rs 2, 55, 58, 89, 424 for package A (Khasi and Jaintia Hills). For Package B (Garo Hills) the tender value was Rs 179 crore and the allotted amount was Rs 2, 70, 37, 84, 681.
He said that the work had been awarded and implemented so promptly despite the actual financial bid indicated an escalation of more than 50 per cent.
“The state is being looted from its limited resources. The state is under threat because of the continuous loot that is happening. It is not just officers but political bosses who are hand in glove in the criminal conspiracy,” he said.
He added, “There has been another manipulation in the process of payment. For the first time in the history of Meghalaya, the CMD of MeECL has sent a letter to the concern officer at the lowest level which is the level of Sub-Divisional Officer to prepare a bill and submit directly to the Chief Engineer of MeECL Distribution and pass the Bill without allowing it to go through the normal process of scrutiny at different levels.”
Referring to the blatant corrupt practices, he said that it had proven beyond reasonable doubt that there had been a collective effort by greedy people in power to engage in criminal conspiracy.
“Though sponsored by the Government of India, it is a scheme required to be implemented with a matching share by the state government. Where is that matching share going to come? It is going to come from the limited coffer,” he remarked.
Sangma recalled that when the “manipulative tender” was on, there was an aggrieved party who went to the High Court but after a certain period of time the petitioner withdrew the petition.
He questioned whether the petitioner was influenced to withdraw asserting that there have been instances where out of the Court settlement prevailed.
The petitioner alleged that the whole bidding document was manipulated to favour particular contractors, in this connection the MeECL was made to file affidavit after affidavit.
Stating that MeECL wanted to correct the anomalies but said that then CMD PS Thangkhiew was removed overnight and the officer who succeeded him was also removed.
Asked, Sangma said, “We will take recourse to all prevailing measures mandated under law and to stop them from further looting.”
He said that that corrupt practices of political bosses and officials would loot the state of its scarce resources.