Mahagenco orders probe into illegal promotion of Khaparkheda CE

Nagpur: Mahagenco has ordered an inquiry into the illegal promotion of Prakash Khandare, chief engineer of Khaparkheda thermal power station. Khandare was provided ten additional marks to enable him to get promotion in May 2017.
Activist Anil Wadpalliwar had provided documents to TOI that show that Khandare was given ten additional marks for being selected for promotion. TOI had sent an e-mail to Mahagenco public relations officer (PRO) Mahesh Aphale last Monday. It received an e-mail on Wednesday informing that the executive director (HR) had asked executive director (projects) SM Marudkar to conduct a detailed inquiry into the matter.
Mahagenco had floated an advertisement in March 2017 for filling up the post of three chief engineers. Twelve deputy chief engineers and superintendent engineers applied for the posts.
They appeared for a written test of 400 marks in which Khandare scored 232. This translates into 40.6 marks out of 70. The remaining 30 marks were for the interview — subject knowledge, leadership skills, communication skills and innovation & creativity. Khandare scored 17 out of 30. His total should have been 57.60 but in the final column his total was shown as 67.60, 10 more than the actual figure.
The marks of another candidate Sunil Ingle was also inflated by 10 but he was not selected. There is no discrepancy in marks of the remaining ten candidates. The interview was held on May 22, 2017.
The members of the interview panel were Mahagenco managing director Bipin Shrimali, KM Chirutkar, AR Nandanpawar, Vinod Bondre, Shyam Wardhane, VM Jaideo, JK Srinivas and CS Thotwe.
On the basis of the inflated marks, Khandare was promoted as chief engineer of Paras thermal power station. Before that, he was working as deputy CE of Nasik plant.
A source in Mahagenco said that many officials were promoted by inflating marks and the practice was continuing because it had not been exposed so far.
Wadpalliwar has rejected the internal Mahagenco inquiry and demanded a vigilance inquiry into the scam. “Talented officers are not promoted and inefficient ones are moved up the order by inflating marks. This is the reason why Mahagenco plants perform poorly and their generation cost is high. It is the common consumers who pay for this inefficiency by paying higher power bills. I urge energy minister Nitin Raut to immediately recommend a vigilance inquiry and take strict action against the members of the interview panel,” he told TOI. “I will also complain to Lokauykta in this regard,” he added.