PrashantNews
Two months after the Uttarakhand government sent notices to the controversial Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam (UPRNN) for substandard works, an alleged scandal to the tune of Rs 130 crore in the corporation has come to the fore in Uttarakhand.
Six cases have been registered against five former officials of the Dehradun unit of the UPRNN in connection with alleged financial irregularities of about Rs 130 crore, police source said on Sunday.
All the six cases were registered on the complaint given by Sunil Kumar Malik, Additional Project Manager of the Dehradun unit of the UPRNN at the Nehru Colony police station in which it was stated that the departmental investigations found financial irregularities to the tune of Rs 130 crore in some projects before 2018-19.
The cases have been registered against the then Project Manager Shiv Asare Sharma, a resident of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, the then Project Manager Pradeep Kumar Sharma, a resident of Punjabi Bagh, New Delhi, Assistant Accountant Level 2 Virendra Kumar Ravi, a resident of Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, Accountant Ram Prakash Gupta, a resident of Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh and Resident Engineer Satish Kumar Upadhyay, a resident of Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh. All the officials have retired now.
Most of the scandals surfaced in the constructions of ITIs, Doon Medical College and other places.
UPRNN was in news in December last year after state Chief Secretary Radha Raturi asked it to refund the payments made for the substandard works done in ITI buildings in the hill state.
The Chief Secretary directed the concerned officials to issue notices to UPRNN in the case of incomplete and substandard construction work of ITI buildings. The CS also gave strict instructions for refund of payment due to incomplete and substandard construction works and to register FIR against UPRNN in case of non-compliance of the notice.
In 2017, the state government had decided to ban it for allegedly carrying out substandard works in the state. However, after the death of the state parliamentary minister Prakash Pant, the matter to blacklist UPRNN was put on the backburner.
“When Pant ji was minister in the government, he was very angry over the previous Congress government for awarding lots of contracts to the UPRNN. But after his death, the UPRNN again started thriving in the state,” a top government official said.