Charging that the Prithviraj Chavan’s Democratic Front government was “sitting over” the findings ofthe M K Kulkarni Committee on the alleged financial irregularities inirrigation projects in the Marathwada region , the Opposition BJP has nowdemanded that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) be set up to look into thespecific charges against politicians and bureaucrats indicted in the report.The Marathwada region is quite high on backlog of projects.
Senior BJP legislator Devendra Fadnavis, state party spokesperson Madhav Bhandari and theparty’s former MLA Babanrao Lonikar alleged that the Congress-led DFgovernment had “suppressed” the findings in the Kulkarni Committee report onthe construction of 11 barrages across the Godavari river.
They said that the Kulkarni committee -- which probedvarious violation of norms, financial irregularities and acts of negligence inexecuting the work on 11 irrigation barrages being constructed across theGodavari river -- submitted its report more than three years ago.
“But, the state government has yet not initiated any actionagainst the bureaucrats and politicians indicted in the report for hugeescalation in construction cost and massive corruption in the execution of theprojects,” they said.
Fadnavis charged that the cost for the construction 11barrages had gone up by “30 to 80 times” of the original costs, causing a lossof Rs 2,400 crore to the state exchequer.
According to Fadnavis, the Godavari Irrigation DevelopmentCorporation (GIDC) was to build 11 Kolhapur Type (KT) weirs in four districtsof Parbhani, Jalna, Aurangabad and Nanded of Marathwada region, at an estimatedcost of Rs. 200 crore. The state government gave the administrative go aheadfor the construction of these barrages in 2006.
“Midway through the projects, the GIDC decided to upgradethe projects without getting clearance from the Central Water Commission. Thechange in designs led to cost hikes in these 11 projects to around Rs. 2, 400crore,” Fadnavis and Lonikar said.
“The most astonishing fact of this project is that even withthe change in design there was no increase in the storage capacity. The statewater resources policy is that for creating storage of 1 TMC (Thousand MillionCubic feet), approximately Rs 3.5 crore can be utilised. In the case of theGIDC, to increase storage by a mere 0.5 percent more than Rs 200 crore has beenspilled on each of the 11 projects,” Fadnavis said.
It was on the basis of a complaint lodged with theAurangabad police that the state government appointed a one-member committeeunder the retired Principal Secretary MK Kulkarni, on July 7, 2008 to probe theescalation in the project costs and alleged irregularities in theconstruction. The committee submittedits report to the state government in October 2009.
“Given the incriminating findings in the Kulkarni committeereport, one would have expected that the state to suspend the funding to theseprojects. But, we are told that in 2012 around Rs 1300 crore was additionallyprovided for the GIDC to execute these projects,” Fadnavis said.
Lonikar said that he had been receiving threat calls fromvested interests ever since he lodged a fresh complaint with the Aurangabadpolice against some senior irrigation and state officials including the chiefsecretary a fortnight ago for alleged criminal breach of trust under sections406 and 409 of IPC.
