less than a week after it was saddled with a controversy involving its Minister Pankaja Munde, the BJP-led saffron alliance Government landed in an embarrassing situation yet again on Tuesday, as its Education Minister Vinod Tawde faced allegations of irregularities in awarding a Rs 191 crore contract by his department.
Though the allegations faced by Tawde are similar in nature, the only saving grace is that the State Finance Ministry has put on hold the Rs 191 crore contract cleared by Tawde’s Ministry and ordered a detailed inquiry into the alleged irregularities in awarding the contract for the purchase of fire extinguishers for the Zilla Parishad schools in Maharashtra.
like in the case of purchases made by Pankaja’s Women and Child Welfare Ministry, the Tawde-headed School Education Ministry had — through a Government resolution issued on February 15, 2015 — authorised the office of the Education Director (Primary) to enter into a contract with the Thane-based Reliable Fire Engineers for the purchase of 62,105 fire extinguishers for the ZP schools in the State, without floating e-tenders. Under the contract, each school was to be provided three fire extinguishers costing Rs 8321 each procured from the firm in question.
However, the officials of the Finance Ministry — while vetting the papers relating to the purchase order placed on the private on February 27 — found alleged irregularities in the contract and stayed the purchase on March 4.
Addressing a hurriedly called news conference on Tuesday along with Tawade and Co-operatives Minister Chandrakant Patil, Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar sought to underplay the allegations. “The Opposition is making a mountain out of mole hill,” Mungantiwar said.
Dismissing the media reports of the scam as baseless and without any documentary proof, Mungantiwar said: “I must thank the Education Minister that he closed the file immediately. Not a single rupee was given. These kind of allegations cannot be made without political conspiracy. There is a dirty political conspiracy in this matter, he alleged.
Denying any violation of norm in the fire extinguisher purchase move, Tawde said: “Not a single rupee has been paid to contractors. We stopped the order immediately after the Finance Department raised objections”.
Tawde said that while going in for the purchase of fire extinguishers, he was merely complying with a Supreme Court order on providing fire-fighting equipment for schools.
“Our Education department budget for the purpose is Rs 18 crore but there are allegations of a Rs 191 crore scam. There was already a provision of Rs 18 crore made by earlier Congress Government for purchase of fire-fighting equipment in schools. Had we wanted, we could have ordered equipment based on that provision. Since we had to comply with the SC order, I approached the finance department, asking about providing the equipment to all the schools,” he said.
“That’s how amount came to Rs 191 crore. That is what is being referred as the Rs 191 crore scam. This is despite the fact that not a single rupee has been given to anyone..About Rs 6 crore-worth equipment was delivered, however, no money has been paid to contractors, Tawde said.