Finding large scale irregularities in purchase of solar lights, state ombudsman went ahead with registration of case against chairperson of Nagar Palika Parishad in Hardoi along with other officials engaged in the entire purchase process.
A notice in this regard has been also served to the accused persons and necessary action will be taken once they will submit their clarification. lokayukat, Justice (retd)NK Mehrotra when contacted confirmed of registering a case in the above matter after finding the charges prima-facie true. Reports said that the Nagar Palika Parishad in Hardoi had purchased 100 solar lights in the 2009-10 financial-year at the rate of Rs 69,000 each light.
However, a complaint in this regard has been made with the state ombudsman by a local resident in which he charged that huge bungling was made in the purchase just to make money out of it.
The complainant provided records that the same solar lights has been provided by Uttar Pradesh New and Renewable Energy Development (UPNEDA) just at Rs 19,000, but still the same has been purchased from a private company at Rs 69,000 that too on Maximum Retail Price (MRP). He further added that even the state government direction was openly violated in the purchase as Government Order (GO)asked all the official bodies to make purchases from Government run department and in the above case, the solar lights should be purchased by UPNEDA.
Sources said that by purchasing the lights from open market and that too on MRP, the chairperson of the Nagar Palika Parishad of Hardoi had incurred a loss of Rs 40,000 per light on the state exchequer total valuing Rs 40 lakh. Sources said that lokayukta, now after registering a case in the matter and issuing notice to the guilty persons, had also directed the authorities of UPNEDA as well as the Public Works Department to send their schedule price of solar lights on which they make purchase to estimate actual loss.
It may be mentioned that earlier also, chief minister freezes the administrative as well as financial powers of the chairman of the Nagar Palika Parishad of Pratapgarh, Hari Pratap Singh, after State Ombudsman pointed large scale irregularities in purchase of High Mast light in Paratapgarh and held the chairman primarily responsible for irregularities. The scam resulted into loss of several lakh rupees to state exchequer so Mehrorta, had asked the State Government to conduct a high level investigation into the matter after registering case against Hari Pratap Singh and others whose name came up during enquiry. He also recommended action against the chairman
. During probe, Mehrorta found that Singh, had purchased 25 high mast light of Philips Company (12.5 meter high) out of which 24 were installed but one was lying unutilised just due to lack of proper space. Mehrorta through documents learnt that the purchase was shown at Rs 3.95 lakh per light. However, Mehrorta was reportedly shocked when to verify the prices, he summoned the records of Rajkiya Nirman Nigam, which pointed that the scheduled rate of the above high mast light of Philips Company is Rs 2.79 lakh and not as shown by the Parishad’s officials in Pratapgarh.
Interestingly the purchase of the light was shown through one Friends Electrical of lucknow. Not only this, when Mehrotra directly summoned price of the above lights from the Philips Company, he was further surprised when they quoted the above price and not Rs 3.95 lakh per light as the record of Nagar Palika Parishad of Pratapgarh pointed. When the state ombudsman summoned the company officials, they claimed that the price was not quoted by them but it was send by the Friends Electricals using their company letter heads.
Besides the above, Mehrorta, also issued notice to chairman of the Nagar Palika Parishad of Banda, Vinod Jain, after preliminary enquiry by him pointed towards multi-crore rupees scam in purchase of lED lights. Sources said that a purchase of 500 lED lights have been made by the office of Chairman of the Nagar Palika Parishad, in Banda earlier this year in February and March. The Purchase was made in more than Rs 3 crore from JS Trader in Durga Bazar at Banda. Parishad had utilized the budget sanctioned by State Finance Commission, for the said purchase.
The preliminary enquiry by lokayukta found that price of the same number of lED as quoted by Surya Roshini of Bangalore, was about Rs 82.29 lakh but still the same company’s lED has been purchased by the Parishad’s office in more than Rs 3 crore. Similarly, loakayukta also found that the Parishad purchased two Electric Cremation Machine for the district in more than Rs 2.89 crore but when the State Ombudsman summoned schedule price of the gadget, he was shocked when the company quoted him rate at about Rs 59 lakh per machine.