The State Vigilance Bureau on Thursday registered an FIR against the five Jharkhand State Electricity Board officials in connection with the Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (APDRP) scam in Ranchi. These officials have been booked for causing a loss of over Rs 107 crore to the exchequer by floating tenders illegally under the schemes of APDRP.
The names of the officials include PK Sinha, Umesh Sinha, Niranjan Rai, SN Chandrasekhar and GNS Munda.
“The case leads to fraud in the tendering process of schemes under APDRP in the 18 districts of Jharkhand where the cost of the schemes was overestimated by these officials causing huge loss to the public exchequer,” said Additional Director General (Vigilance) Neeraj Sinha.
A source in the vigilance bureau however, revealed that the bureau has gathered evidences against 2-3 former chairmen of the board, but the Government ordered that only those officials should be named in the FIR whose statements has been recorded by the bureau.
“At least three former chairmen have found to be indulged in the scam. Presently, only five officials have been identified in the case while others will subsequently be identified during the investigations. Other persons will be booked as and when the evidences get substantiated during the investigations,” said a source.
APDPR project was to be conducted in 18 districts of the state and Rs 18 crore were allotted to each district. Embezzlement of about Rs 107 crore was found in the project of Rs 324 crore.
Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Dumka, Deoghar, lohardaga, Gumla, Bokaro and Chaibasa were among the 18 districts where APDPR project schemes were being conducted.
The government had ordered a vigilance probe after irregularities were reported in the project during the year 2008-10.
It took more than one and a half year to the vigilance bureau to investigate the scam where several flaws were found while carrying out the project. Under this programme, the overhead wires were to be made underground, non-functional transformers were to be replaced with the functional ones and high quality cables were to be installed.