An officer of the Uttarakhand forest department and the Himalayan Chipko Foundation have accused World Bank officials of corruption in league with senior department officials while alleging that the State lokayukta provides protection to the corrupt officials.
Addressing the media on Thursday, department officer RD Pathak and HCF president JP Dabral said that the World Bank has loaned Rs 1250 crore to the Government of India for Uttarakhand Decentralised Watershed Development Project (UDWDP).
Two projects of Rs 500 crore and Rs 750 crore have been approved by the WB for watershed development. The first tranche of Rs 500 crore was given in 2005 while the second tranche has been approved and is likely to be disbursed soon.
Dabral said, “HCF has discovered rampant corruption with direct involvement of senior bureaucrats and WB officials with even the State lokayukta protecting the culprits. The irony is that there is a nexus and clout enjoyed by corrupt officials who have secured promotions despite the investigating officer establishing offence under IPC and are at the helm of affairs in Uttarakhand misleading everyone.”
He said that two complaints were filed in office of Uttarakhand lokayukta in 2011 regarding the embezzlement of Rs 3 crore and Rs 2.5 crore by UDWDP officials which was only a sample as the embezzlement amount is greater.
The lokayukta got only one complaint investigated by a senior inspector who in his report in January 2012 established criminal conspiracy by IFS officer VK Pangti and many others including department staff and suppliers.
“Instead of recommending suspension of the accused officials and ordering seizure of documents to avoid tampering and facilitate extensive investigation in future, lokayukta chose silence and inaction.”
The report reveals fraudulent payments of Rs 90,000 and Rs 17,31,700 respectively to Universal Advertisers, Haldwani and husband –wife team of Vanadana and Sunil Goel, who have no printing presses, by means of forged documents under a conspiracy of UDWDP director, his store keeper and suppliers.
Fourteen fraudulent transport bills and purchase of electrical goods worth Rs 2.5 lakh from a shop that had purchased the same goods from another shop for Rs 3970 are only small portions of the corruption in Dehradun district alone, said Dabral.
The adverse observations made by CAG have also revealed major anomalies like unrealistic budget and annual work plan because only 48 per cent (Rs 166 million out of budget of Rs 344 million) expenditure was incurred during 2005-06.
Vehicles costing Rs 4.50 million were purchased in March 2006 simply to utilise the budget within financial year on short term quotation notice (15 days) against WB guidelines and Financial Rules which require atleast 30 days for wide publicity.
Bank drafts were prepared in April 2006 and vehicles were received in July 2006.
After receiving report of lokayukta investigating officer, Siddhartha law College principal Dr SK Pandey informed Uttarakhand Chief Secretary of the embezzlement of public money and requested a CBI probe, suspension of officials till completion of the investigation and registration of FIR against the guilty officials.
“We demand a CBI enquiry of the whole issue which includes the role of lokayukta and the intentional delay investigating one of our complaint which has given an NGO time to create the evidences in their favour,” said Dabral.
He said that when in 2012 Pandey showed the WB team leader the instances of corruption, his report was not received and he was told to address the letter to State Forest and Rural Development Commissioner with a copy to the WB team leader’s office.
“It is strange that the WB team is hoodwinking the country by regularly sending wrong reports. There was deliberate dereliction of duty on part of the entire WB team. Such a big scam can only happen when there is collusion and connivance in the scam. There is direct evidence to prove the wrong doing of WB officials. They are equally guilty in this crime and should be listed as accused in the chargesheet,” demanded the HCF head.