HC’s last chance to government on stance in irrigation work audit

Nagpur: Peeved at Maharashtra government’s failure to inform about progress in conducting work audit of all pending irrigations projects, the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Thursday sought a detailed report in this regard.
A division bench of justices Bhushan Gavai and Vinay Deshpande also directed the government to inform the court of the progress in ongoing investigations in alleged Rs70,000 crore scam in various irrigation projects across the state.The judges granted two weeks to complete formalities with a warning that it would be last chance for the government.
The directives came while hearing a fresh plea by NGO Jan Manch alleging government’s failure to probe Rs70,000 crore irrigation scam, despite clear directives from the judiciary. Earlier, the judges verbally enquired with the government pleader on number of bureaucrats and officials from Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation (VIDC) who had allegedly connived with contractors in the scam.
Jan Manch president Anil Kilor, through counsel Firdos Mirza, had demanded a work audit of all pending projects that were stuck due to massive corruption, officials apathy and large-scale irregularities. They contended that ACB could only probe criminal aspects like financial bungling but for detecting other irregularities like inferior quality of construction, inflation of work tenders, deviation from actual specifications, and frequent cost escalations, among others, ‘work audit’ was a must.
During last hearing, acting advocate general Rohit Deo assured the government was positive in conducting audit of projects and he would take instructions from the authorities. He also stated they would soon complete investigations into irregularities in Mokhabardi Lift Irrigation Scheme (LIS) and transfer of former Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) SP Rajiv Jain had nothing to do with the scam.