New Delhi: The Delhi government has ordered a probe into the alleged scam of exchanging old notes by Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), transport minister Satyendar Jain said on Tuesday.
According to him, some DTC officials deposited huge amounts of demonetised currency notes as bus fares.
“It appears that some officials either exchanged their old notes with smaller value notes collected from passengers as fares or they exchanged someone else’s old notes on commission,” Mr Jain told reporters.
The minister said that fare collected worth over Rs 8 crore was deposited by some DTC depots in banks between November 10 and November 20 in old currency notes. He said he wrote to the transport commissioner last week to get the matter investigated by the Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) and suspend all DTC officials involved in the scam.
“Irregularities have been found in around half the DTC depots where 98 to 99 per cent of the money deposited in banks was in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes,” Mr Jain said, citing a preliminary report. He said he received complaints of irregularities during a “public hearing” on November 19 after which he had ordered DTC Managing Director to submit a report.
Meanwhile, the Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay alleged that the money came from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and not DTC employees.
Demanding a probe into the matter, he said: “Mr Jain’s statement that Rs 8.5 crore belonged to DTC officials sounds to be a hilarious effort to mislead people.”
“The matter definitely needs a high level probe by ACB as the people of Delhi believe these scrapped notes came from AAP coffers, and have no connection with the DTC officials,” Mr Upadhyay said. Last week, the Delhi BJP president had written to lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung about the alleged scam.
