Guwahati, June 16: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case, based on a complaint from BSNL (Assam Circle) here, against 21 officials of BSNL and others, alleging that the officials had entered into a conspiracy with a contractor and cheated the telecom service provider.
Among those accused are a former BSNL general manager, former deputy general manager, former assistant general manager and a former chief accounts officer of BSNL Jorhat, Sibsagar and Guwahati, besides others, including private persons.
“It was alleged that the public servants entered into a conspiracy with a contractor and others and, in pursuance thereof, cheated BSNL. It was further alleged that the contractor was given work order for laying national optical fibre network cable through open trenching method at the rate of Rs 90,000 per km,” an official statement said.
“It was also alleged that later on, the contractor made different pleas including no right of way from owner of private land, etc., to convert open trenching method to horizontal directional drilling (HDD) method (at the rate of Rs 2, 30,000 per km) in spite of provision of right of way, easement clause in the contract, thereby violating the tender clause and causing loss of Rs 22 crore (approximately) to the BSNL,” the statement said.
Searches were conducted on Friday at 25 locations, including offices and residential premises of accused in Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha and Haryana, which led to recovery of incriminating articles.
Further investigation is underway.