4 ex-mc officials in dock

MOHALI: Four former Mohali municipal corporation (MC) officials have been indicted for discrepancies in the purchase of a tree pruning machine. The inquiry was conducted by retired additional district and sessions judge BR Bansal.

The four will appear before Punjab additional chief secretary of local bodies Sanjay Kumar on June 19, who will decide on further course of action.

The former MC officials include executive engineer Naresh Batta, now in Hoshiarpur; deputy controller finance and accounts ( DCFA) Vinayak Kumar, now in Ludhiana; assistant corporation engineer Mohinder Pal, now subdivisional engineer posted at the head office of the local bodies department in Sector 35, Chandigarh, and junior engineer Surinder Goel, now retired.

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Tenders were floated on September 26, 2016, for Rs 1.8 crore.after an agreement was executed with Bengaluru-based Clean World Equipment on January 1, 2017, it was paid Rs 89.5 lakh in advance.

Interestingly, the machine was not delivered to the civic body, prompting some councillors to allege corruption in the deal, following which BR Bansal was appointed to investigate the matter.

Several discrepancies have been reported by Bansal, from the tendering process to issuing purchasing orders to a particular company for the machines.

The report said the officials had estimated the machine costs at Rs 1.80 crore on the basis of just a single quotation from the firm. It added that the tender approval too was accorded without specifying the amount agreed to for the machine. No supporting documents were submitted verifying that the bidder was a manufacturer or authorised dealer.