Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (File)The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has launched a probe in the allegations of a flourishing racket of bogus bank guarantee and fixed deposit receipts involving private contractors. The civic administration has already black-listed 18 contractors who were found to have submitted bogus bank guarantees and fixed deposit receipts.
“We are examining the documents submitted by the private contractors. So far, we have found that 18 contractors had submitted bogus documents… they have all been blacklisted,” Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar said.
“We do not rule out the involvement of civic officials and some outsiders in this racket. Some gang is likely to be involved in this. We are as of now collecting all the relevant documents. We will examine them and if they are found bogus, we will launch police complaints,” he said, adding that more facts are expected to come out in the probe.
Hardikar said those contractors who have been black-listed will not be able to participate in future tender process.
A contractor who bags a civic contract after going through the normal tendering process has to submit bank guarantees and fixed deposit receipts to prove that he or she had the financial strength to carry out the project.
Recently, MLAs Laxman Jagtap and Anna Bansode had demanded investigation into the thriving bank guarantee and FDR racket.
Nod for offline meetings
Meanwhile, the civic administration has said that it had obtained the approval of the state government to conduct general body meetings and meetings of other committees as used to be done in the pre-Covid times. As such, the practice of holding these meetings through video conferencing would be discontinued.
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The officials said several members used to remain absent from the video-conferences. They said the general public can now attend all PCMC meetings. All corporators will have to attend meetings wearing masks and will have to maintain physical distancing, the administration said in a note circulated on Tuesday.