In what appears to be a strong signal to those district officials who give a knee jerk reaction when it comes to lodging criminal cases against technocrats, the principal secretary, rural works department, Government of Jharkhand, SK Satpathy seems to have shown the way to pin down errant technocrats for siphoning off Government money!
According to the SP Palamu YS Ramesh, the principal secretary SK Satpathy did lodge an FIR against one construction company besides six engineers of the Public Works Department with the Parwa police station. Ramesh added Satpathy has lodged many more such FIRs with various police stations in Palamu.
All the FIRs revolve round construction of rural roads where Government money has been allegedly drained out. Satpathy is among very few senior IAS officers who is known for his penchant for work and drive against any irregularity. The FIR lodged with Parwa police station is against embezzlement of Government money to the tune of Rs 13.61 lakh over road construction between Parwa to Paton.
According to the Parwa police station, the FIR lodged by Satpathy is against the M/S lotos Construction company Mukteshwar Prasad and six engineers — Sanjay Kumar Sinha Executive engineer, Manmohan Jha executive engineer, U K Mehta Assistant Engineer, Inder Mohan Singh junior engineer, Mahesh Prasad junior engineer, Anwar Ali Ansari junior engineer.YS Ramesh said more such FIRs in regard to construction of roads have come up in police stations like Chhaterpur, Naudeeha, Chainpur etc. Ramesh added these FIRs, dealing with swindling of Government money, have been lodged in at least nine police stations in Palamu district.
"I have asked the officers concerned in charge of the police stations where have come up such FIRs to be most investigative and to conduct supervision in a manner that no guilty persons get any walk free," SP Ramesh said. Sources said rural roads in Palamu have become a cesspool of corruption. There are many shades of corruption. First work is not done as per specification. Again length is shortened. The width of the road is lessened.
The thickness is reduced. Sub standard materials like dead stones, dust ridden chips are used. No road rolling by heavy machine is done. Measurement of such a constructed road is fudged. Sources said it is very rare that a principal secretary has filed a spate of FIRs. The question is why the engineers did not do this earlier. Had the construction been properly monitored and supervised, things would not have come to such a pass at all.