PANAJI
Giving a major spin to the issue raging over alleged irregularities in the beach cleaning contract, Goa Lokayukta has recommended the Anti-Corruption Branch of the Vigilance Department to re-open the investigation into the case while also suggesting that the State government may consider the question of referring the matter to CBI for investigation.
Lokayukta P K Mishra submitted a report containing these recommendations to the State government after conducting a detailed investigation.
Summarising the findings of the investigation, the report states that the then tourism minister Dilip Parulekar had shown indulgence and favouritism by not acting upon the recommendations made by the tourism director and principal secretary (tourism). It further says that the minister was actuated in discharging his functions by improper motive and abused and misused his position to obtain any gain for the contractors and to favour the contractors.
On account of this, it was held that the contractors were allowed to continue work without formal extension order. The term of the contract was for five years and this had to be renewed after every 15 months, a condition that was violated.
The Lokayukta report also held that the tourism department introduced the scheme of Scientific Management of Beach Cleaning without proper planning and preparation. It states that there was no justification for the project cell either for not following several laid down procedures. In addition to this, the contractors had submitted false bills, which were not properly scrutinised.
Lokayukta report has pointed out that the tourism department should not have paid the bills in full for September 2014 and October 2014.
It was observed that the contractors had not deployed minimum labour force and had not supplied required number of dust bins as per the methodology.
It may be recalled that the ACB had conducted an inquiry and had given a clean chit to former Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar
The beach cleaning contract was awarded by the State government to Ram Engineering and Construction Company and Bhumika Clean Tech Pvt Ltd. The Lokayukta took suo moto cognizance of the matter following the complaints filed by Adv Aires Rodrigues, Porvorim MLA Rohan Khaunte and Suraj Borkar alleging that the beach cleaning project was a multi-crore scam.
During the initial stages, it had come to light that the total amount spent in 11 months for North Goa was Rs 4.47 crore and for South Goa was Rs 4.53 crore.
The complainants had argued that the contract was awarded to little known companies at a very exorbitant rate of Rs 14.56 crore annually while the cleaning of beaches over the previous years had cost the government a mere average of Rs two crore annually.
