Sambalpur: Amid irregularities in PMGSY road construction from Kansar to Jamankira in Samablpur district, a case was registered against five people involved in the scam. It was also alleged that the construction of PMGSY road is being carried out at night.
A preliminary investigation by the rural development department had detected irregularities worth Rs 40 lakh in the road construction work. Superintending engineer of the RD department Sanjaya Patra has registered a case against five officers including the contractor of their department at Riamal police station.
The accused officials are executive engineer Kishore Mishra, former assistant engineer Himanshusekhar Sethi, junior engineer of Debgad RD department Himanshu Behera, estimator engineer Subodh Mallik and contractor of Tulasi Construction.
This newspaper carried two reports in this regard a few days ago. Later, Rural Development Department Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena ordered a probe into misappropriation of Rs1 crore in Kansara-Jamankira road construction work.
Jena instructed the chief engineer of the department to form a five-member team to investigate and report the issue to him. He directed the chief engineer to report the reasons for abandonment of the projects, percentage of substantial works done, poor monitoring and misappropriation of funds.
The contractor, in an effort to hide his fault, has started renovating the road. He is supposed to have sent materials for the reconstruction of the road.
But the locals have been opposing the reconstruction of the road and demanding serious action against corrupt officers and the contractor.
Earlier, on the basis of allegations from locals, a central audit team visited Sambalpur district and pointed out several discrepancies in implementation of the Kansara-Jamankira road project under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in Sambalpur district.
The project was undertaken by the Rural Development Department and a tender (tender No OR-08) of the road was awarded to a contractor named Tulasi Constructions.
The project cost was estimated to be Rs5.73 crore for the construction of 14-km road. But the contractor has completed only a patch of 8-km road and the remaining 6-km road is yet to be completed.
Locals alleged that the RD department had withdrawn total cost of the construction of 14-km road in May, 2019 after producing fake bills projecting completion of the project work. Meanwhile, locals alleged that irregularities to the tune of Rs 1 crore were committed in this project work.