Two NMC depts involved in bogus contracts scam

Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s (NMC) preliminary inquiry has revealed involvement of some staffers of two departments in the bogus contracts scam. The civic body has recovered Rs67 lakh paid to the private firms, lodged complaint with Sadar police station, and also issued show cause notices to six staffers.
TOI was the first to report about the bogus contract scam on Tuesday. A contractor running five different firms in the names of himself and his family members had prepared 42 bogus contracts with fake signatures of chief medical officer Dr Sanjay Chilkar and other staffers of NMC health department. He never supplied the materials but drew payment of Rs67,08,630 from the accounts and finance department.
NMC additional municipal commissioner Ram Joshi conducted preliminary inquiry and found these bogus contracts were prepared between December 20, 2020, and March 31, 2021. “After submission of file with accounts and finance department, concerned department is supposed to generate bill online on payment module developed by NMC under e-governance project. Then, the head of department will have to clear it online. The bill goes to accounts and finance department online. The staffers of accounts and finance department have to cross check online bill with file. All bogus contracts were of health department but bills were generated and approved by general administration department (GAD). A staffer of GAD was in connivance with the contractor. This staffer also had the username and password of the head of GAD, and used it to process approvals,” he said.
Joshi added staffers of accounts and finance department approved bills and released payments even though the bills were generated by GAD and file was of health department. “Even files were created without a number, which we use to track it online. It is known as letter and file management system (LFMS) number. Still, the accounts and finance department approved bills and disbursed payments,” he said.
Thus, preliminary inquiry has revealed involvement of some staffers of GAD and accounts and finance department in the scam.
Joshi said NMC has recovered the amount as the cheque was cleared a day ago. “Dr Chilkar lodged a complaint with Sadar police station against five firms — Sudarshan Paper Converting, Manohar Sakode and Brothers, Swastik Trade Link, Gurukripa Stationers and Printers, and S K Enterprises. Show cause notices have been issued to chief accounts and finance officer Vijay Kolhe, accounts officer Rajesh Meshram, assistant commissioner (GAD) Mahesh Dhamecha, senior clerk at GAD Mohan Padwanshi, auditor SY Nagdive and auditor Afaque Ahmed,” he said.
Notice has been issued to Dhamecha as he gave his username and password to his subordinate.
PI from Sadar Vinod Chaudhari said inquiry was going on and an offence will be registered after completion of inquiry.
AFTERMATH OF SCAM
* Process to suspend staffers and start departmental inquiry going on
* Directions given to 24 departments to cross check contracts approved by departments with payments disbursed by accounts and finance department in last two fiscals
* Accounts and finance department gave names of works where bills are pending for clearance to concerned departments for cross checking
* Discussions on how to check whether such bogus contracts were prepared earlier too