The Gujarat police on Friday arrested conman Sandip Rajput, and his aide Abu-Bakr Saiyyad, a government contractor, for siphoning public money in the name of fake projects. According to the police, Mr. Rajput, ran the operation for nearly three years and pocketed a grant of over ₹4 crore from the State in tribal dominated Chita Udepur district of Gujarat.
Posing as an “executive engineer” at the Irrigation Department , Mr. Rajput and his aides had set up a functioning office in Gujarat’s Bodeli town on July 21, 2021, which continued to operate until October 25, 2023. From this office, Mr. Rajput and his accomplices allegedly sent proposals for various projects in the area.
According to the police, Mr. Rajput forged government documents, signatures, records and project literatutre, and during the period, he received 93 government projects of minor irrigation for which he pocketed funds to the tune of ₹4.15 crore.
Rajput and Saiyyad received a total of ₹4,15,54,915 through fraudulently acquired government grants for as many as 93 projects during 2021 and 2023.
On October 25 this year, the district collector became suspicious; he questioned the bona fide officers of the Irrigation Department about 12 pending applications seeking a grant of over ₹3 crore, and came to realise that there was no sanctioned office in Bodeli. The scrutiny further revealed the fake projects that had been approved earlier.
The Irrigation Department officials apprised the District Collector and the State administration of the situation, and further scrutiny revealed that the proposals approved therein were bogus.
“We lodged an FIR and arrested the accused,” said police inspector A.C. Parmar.
As per the details, the money received by Mr. Rajput came from the government via e-payments in several instalments, under the designation of ‘Executive Engineer, Irrigation Project Division, Bodeli’.
The FIR stated that an entirely bogus department was created by the accused under the lenient eyes of officers or employees of the district and the role of other officials or employees, serving or retired of the department would also be investigated by the police.
Lodged on Tuesday by a clerk in the office of the project administrator in Chita Udepur, the FIR stated that “in a conspiracy hatched in connivance with the retired or transferred and/or some serving officers/employees of the department to extract financial benefit for personal interest while causing a loss to the state exchequer.”
The details shared in the FIR after the preliminary investigation revealed that the government grants in a total of ₹1.98 crore for 40 works under various heads in year 2021-2022 included a ₹59.90 lakh grant for 10 projects under the Gujarat Pattern Yojana as well as ₹1 crore for 20 works under the scheme for women’s drinking water and a nucleus budget for 10 works of ₹39.50 lakh.
These 40 projects worth ₹1.98 crore were also approved by the former project administrator V.C. Gamit, whose role is under the scanner now.
In recent months, several persons posing as officials of the PMO or CMO have been arrested from Gujarat; Kiran Patel who was arrested by J&K Police earlier this year had also posed as a PMO official. Last month, one Mayank Tiwari was arrested by the CBI for posing as the PMO official.
In between, four persons posing as government officials were arrested while they tried to extort money in the name of government contracts.
Gujarat’s leader of Opposition Amit Chavda asked the state government to come clean on the entire bogus government office set up by Rajput and his aides.
“How could this even be possible without the active role of some high profile officials and functionaries in the government,” Mr. Chavda said.
