Bengaluru
The State government suspended eight Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) engineers accused of involving in generation of fake bills to the tune of ₹118 crore and appointed Regional Commissioner of Bengaluru Revenue Division, Amlan Aditya Biswas, as investigation officer to probe the scam.
The Urban Development Department (UDD) issued these orders on Wednesday accepting the recommendations of Lokayukta. The Lokayukta had filed a report after probing the alleged scam in January 2022. The Lokayukta initiated a probe after D.K. Suresh, Bengaluru Rural MP, filed a complaint with the anti-corruption ombudsman in September 2020. The fake bills were pertaining to works carried out in the last two years by the Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Ltd. (KRIDL) in RR Nagar zone. The BBMP had awarded works to the contractors through KRIDL. The orders said the Lokayukta probe clearly indicates major discrepancies in these works except two in which the project was executed properly.
The UDD order said: “In the preliminary report, the Lokayukta had found ₹118 crore loss to the exchequer in just 114 works. As there could be the possibility of massive loss in other works executed by KRIDL under BBMP limits, all works executed by KRIDL in the last two-and-a-half years should be probed.” The order further said to conduct a fair probe into both ongoing and executed works, Mr. Biswas has been appointed as the investigation officer.
The UDD, in its suspension order, said the engineers have been suspended as they may tamper with evidence. The suspended engineers are Doddayya (Chief Engineer) Satish (Assistant Executive Engineer), Basavaraj (Executive Engineer), Siddaramaiah (Assistant Engineer), Umesh (AEE), Srinivas (EE), Venkatalakshmi (AEE), and Shreetej (AEE). Another accused Chandranath (AEE) has retired from service.
