ACB files charges against 7 KIDC bureaucrats

Mumbai: A year after the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) registered a criminal case in the Kondhane dam scam, it submitted its 3,000-page chargesheet in the case on Monday in the Thane sessions court against seven Konkan Irrigation Development Corporation (KIDC) officials. The ACB has charged the seven for committing an offence of criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct in the illegal award of the tender to benefit the contractor.

The chargesheet named the accused as then KIDC executive director D.P. Shirke, chief engineer B.B. Patil, superintending engineer R.D. Shinde, chief engineer P.B. Sonawane, executive engineer A.P. Kalukhe, executive engineer R.C. Rithe and Nisar Fatehmohammad Khatri, partner FA Enterprises. The ACB found that on August 16, 2011, then water resources secretary and KIDC managing director E.B. Patil had signed the dam’s proposal, which was later signed by Tatkare.

The ACB has so far registered three FIRs for rampant corruption and irregularities in allotment of contracts for irrigation projects in the Konkan region and two criminal cases for contracts awarded in the Vidarbha region. The first case was of Balgang irrigation project, the second was about Kalu irrigation project and the third case was filed over the Kondhane irrigation project in which it was found that the state had suffered a loss of Rs 90.04 crore.

Superintending engineer Shinde, executive engineer Rithe, deputy divisional engineer G.K. Joshi and branch engineer V.R. Kasat were suspended in 2014.

The chargesheet said that these people stand accused of flouting every norm while raising the Kondhane dam’s height by 32.30 meters and revising its cost to Rs 327.62 crore from the initial Rs 56 crore. While the cost escalation was cleared without seeking a nod from the competent financial authority, the dam’s height was increased without taking permission from the ministry of environment and forests.