Joining the saffron chorus on the raging RTI-spawned 2013 disaster relief scam issue, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Trivendra Singh Rawat demanded action against the department officers who were involved in alleged scam. The Government should conduct a fair and transparent inquiry into alleged scam by a committee comprising three persons, including a social worker, he said.While addressing the mediapersons on Saturday, Rawat alleged that the Uttarakhand Chief Minister speaks much and seldom acts. BJP leaders have raised several scams that have occurred during this Government’s tenure. We would continue to do the same, but the problem is that the CM and his Government would not act, the BJP leader said.
“On one hand, CM Harish Rawat says he would take against those department officers who are involved in corrupt practices while on the other, he is not acting on his words,” he said. The BJP senior leader appealed to the Chief Minster to act on the evidences he and others are presenting to him. “As per RTI report, there was scam of around Rs48 crore in flood control projects that included building safety walls along the local rivers in eight villages, including Gagori, Joshiyara, Mando, Tekhla and lakshewar, in Uttarkashi district. Two pradhans of the area — Gulraj Singh and DP Baluni — had raised this issue, but both were framed under false cases. They managed to get a stay from the High Court regarding the fabricated cases,” he said.
The BJP leader further said that the agency concerned had constructed thin safety walls in violation of the guidelines. “At some places, the agency had made safety walls with 40 cm thickness while as per the Government’s guideline, it must be 75 cm in these villages. Consequently, all these security walls were swept away within a few months,” he said.Rawat further said the State Government had hired Haryana-based agency and the tasks of implementing several small projects were given to local contractors. “Surprisingly, payment was made for the construction of safety walls in these villages. In fact, the department officers have not cared to verify how the project was implemented,” he said.
While reacting to alleged scams that have occurred during BJP regime in the past, he said that the CM is free to recommend a CBI probe in them to the Central Government. In regards to the scam in agriculture department when he was the Minister of the department, he said the State Government should table a white paper over the issue. “They have all the evidences and they should better paste them on the walls of the Secretariat. I had taken action against the department officers who were involved in malpractices,” he added.