Assam: CM’s Special Vigilance Cell arrests 7 officials of Guwahati Municipal Corporation over misappropriating of funds

The Chief Minister’s Special Vigilance Cell, Assam arrested seven officials of Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) along with a director of a private firm for allegedly misappropriating several crores of government funds meant for the execution of de-siltation work in the Guwahati city.

Further based on an FIR on the basis of findings of a preliminary inquiry conducted by the Chief Minister’s Special Vigilance Cell.

“The commissioner, Guwahati Municipal Corporation, detected some irregularities and illegalities in the execution of de-siltation work for which he ordered an inquiry by Pankaj Chakravarty, joint commissioner, GMC, and forwarded the inquiry report,” an official statement stated.

The inquiry report mentions a firm, Dinsan Global Venture Pvt Ltd, which was engaged in the hiring of vehicles and machineries for carrying out the de-siltation of channels/drains from April 2, 2022 to May 26, 2022.

“The firm submitted bills with forged weighbridge slips for several crores of rupees and withdrew the government funds. It also submitted inflated bills to GMC, showing the supply of vehicles/machineries at inflated rates,” the statement said.

“The officers and staff of GMC criminally conspired and did not implement de-siltation work as per terms and conditions laid down in the tender documents and payments were released to the contractors without proper execution of works based on forged and fake weighbridge slips for their own pecuniary benefits, misappropriating government funds meant for the development work of Guwahati city,” it said.

The arrested accused include Babulal Sarma, OSD (officer on special duty), GMC; Ashif Ahmed, executive officer and Swachhata officer, GMC; Shankar Medhi, executive officer (division-1), GMC; Ramakanta Saikia, executive officer (division-II), GMC; Alin Begum, executive officer (division-III), GMC;  Chittaranjan Dutta, executive officer (division-IV), GMC; Hiranya Barman, executive officer (division-V), GMC; and Dinesh Jaiswal, director, Dinsan Global Venture Pvt Ltd.

A case was registered at the vigilance police station under sections 120(B) /420/ 406/ 409/ 468/ 471 of IPC, read with Sections 13(1)(a)/13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and the accused persons have been arrested.