Punjab Vigilance Bureau has filed challan in the SAS Nagar court against contractor Gurinder Singh and retired engineers of Irrigation Department in the multi-crore Irrigation scam in which five irrigation officials and kingpin of the scam - contractor Gurinder Singh have been arrested so far.
The case pertains to causing crores of rupees loss to the state exchequer in allotment and execution of various works of Irrigation department in the state after a thorough Vigilance Enquiry.
A spokesperson of Vigilance Bureau (VB) said this first challan has been filed in the court to deny any benefit of default bail to Gurinder Singh, the main accused and the retired engineers who have been arrested so far. “Further investigation regarding the role of senior government functionaries and private persons and various aspects of this scam is under progress, and supplementary challans would be submitted in due course of time in the trail court”, he added.
In this first challan, the VB has covered three works namely construction of Shahpur Kandi Hydel Dam work worth Rs 100 crore, Kandi Canal (Rs 15 crore approx) and setting-up of a small dam (Rs 25 crore approx) near Nara village in Hoshiarpur district. To complete this multi-crore scam he added that the VB had asked the irrigation department to provide the details of 42 projects executed which were being probed by the Bureau and have received documents of 35 projects to date.
He said many irregularities have been found in the construction of canal including its cost escalation. Kandi canal including the Dam work was initiated in advance before the Shahpur Kandi Dam work was completed to favour the contractor, he added.