The Mumbai police on Thursday arrested two officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for their alleged involvement in the ongoing '352-crore pre-monsoon roadworks scam, bringing the to
The Mumbai police on Thursday arrested two officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for their alleged involvement in the ongoing '352-crore pre-monsoon roadworks scam, bringing the total number of arrests to 24. These are the first BMC officials to be named and arrested on charges of cheating.
The arrested officials have been identified as chief engineer of the roads and traffics department, Ashok Padamsingh Pawar (57) and chief engineer of the vigilance department, Uday Namdeo Murudkar (54).
Following mayor Snehal Ambekar’s letter to municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta earlier last year, drawing his attention to major graft in the pre-monsoon road work, the civic chief set up an inquiry into the functioning of the roads department. The inquiry report revealed the involvement of several senior civic officials and many officials of the roads department in the graft. It mainly placed the blame on former chief engineer of the vigilance department, Murudkar, and on chief engineer of the roads department, Pawar. While Murudkar was suspended for his alleged involvement in the nullah desilting scam, Pawar was suspended after his name cropped up in the roadworks scam.
A Special Investigation Team of the police was formed for the case after the BMC lodged an FIR with the Azad Maidan police station on April 27. The FIR was registered against six contractors — RPS Infraprojects, Mahavir Infraprojects, RK Madhani, J Kumar, Relcon Infraprojects and KR Constructions.
The civic body had registered an FIR after the BMC’s inquiry team inspected more than 200 roads in the city.
The team inspected 34 roads in the first phase and has now begun to inspect 217 roads in the second phase. In its report it found that the reconstruction and repair work was not up to the mark and in some cases the work done was not according to the original brief.
The arrests till date have been of junior level low-rung members of the auditing and contracting firms. “We are still investigating the case. It was impertinent that BMC officials would be named in the scam, a scam of such high value would have to have involvement of BMC officials,” the officer added.
“After the BMC conducted its enquiry, we began our investigations and found enough evidence against the two officers. They were responsible for handing out the said contracts and also inspecting the work done. The work was approved at all stages by the said officers,” said a senior investigating officer.
