MITHI/DESILTING SCAM–PART5
The long arm of the law finally catches up. The SIT put up by the Government to probe the Mithi river scam has finally come to its final stages.
Engineers who had tweaked the tender conditions are being interrogated and their role is being ascertained. My request to the EOW team is to actually ascertain as to how much silt has been removed, collected and disposed of. I am sure the log book by now must have been manipulated and BMC officials must be hand in glove with the contractors. But the record of the number of trucks with their proper number plates, the local CCTV camera footage & GPS tracker on trucks if matched together, which I think was made mandatory, would give a rather proper record of exactly how much silt was collected and disposed of.
Also the role of the SILT PUSHER machine needs to be probed. How come a unique criteria which matches only one company from Kerala was put in the bid ? How come these machines were purchased by one person (this person changed the night-life scenario of Mumbai) and he holds the key to rent the machines for all the desilting tenders and shockingly the rent is almost double the machine cost. The figure that I know is that this SILT PUSHER machine costs around Rs. 4 crores, and this machine will yield a rent of Rs. 9 crores per annum from the BMC…Haha…What a joke!
That brings me to another important question: how then does the BMC department headed by Mr Choudhary (engineer) justify this cost of rental in the tender estimates? Also a proper investigation is to be done on the role of the architect of the Mithi River Project Mr. Prashant Ramugude and his connection with all the Mithi river bids including the introduction of the Silt Pusher machine.
Along with the Silt Pusher machine, the sudden emergence of Boom Placers also needs to be probed ? How come only Vaibhav Hydraulic was the sole manufacturer of these booms and had the court not intervened, all the approved bidders would have MOU only from Vaibhav Hydraulic. Also it needs to be probed as to who was the common point and the most rewarded by getting the Silt Pusher as well as the Boom Placer in the current desilting bid? I am sure all these questions will be disclosed and the guilty brought to book. EOW, I have given you enough hints throughout my series of blogs now…
But what actually surprises me is that when an SIT of this nature is going on and serious investigation is being conducted, we have the likes of Mr. Gupta who is going across town claiming he is the lowest amongst the three bids in the Mithi development project. He along with Ashoka is a part of a consortium along with a leading infrastructure company who has recently won a big package in the locality. He claims to have a tactical understanding with machine manufacturers who hold the key to get bidders qualified. I intend to break this story soon and would like to remind Mr Gupta that as in the previous cases of Mithi, the law finally does catch up.
Congratulations Mr Gupta but be aware that Satyamev Jayate…
Vikrant Meena Hemant Joshi.
