Scam alleged in ZP purifiers purchase

Nagpur Zilla Parishad vice-president Nitin Rathi on Tuesday alleged fraud in purchase of water purification machines by ZP officials. Apparently rules were ignored in the purchase during in current financial year. The issue was raised during a meeting of the ZP's water supply committee. Rathi said that 36 machines costing Rs 1.75 crore were purchased from an Amravati-based company in 2010 without calling tenders.

Water purifier machines are being installed at overhead water tank by a firm called Hydraulic Engineering since June 24, 2009. The ZP had issued tenders for this work and five such machines were purchased in 2009-10 financial year. On March 31 and April 26, 2010, ZP purchased another sixteen purifiers.

No tenders were called for year 2010-11 and 15 more purchases were purchased from the same firm on June 18, 2010. Even though the machines were purchased from the same company, separate bills were raised for each machine. Suspecting a big scam in purchasing these machines, Rathi demanded an inquiry.

The committee also decided that, under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), boundary walls will be built for farmers with five acres of land or less. It was also decided that Rs 10 lakh will be given to Gram Panchayats for the construction of a panchayat bhavan under the same scheme.

The meeting was told that Ramtek canal had developed cracks in it last year. Major losses were incurred by the nearby farmers as their farms were flooded with the water from breached canal. Later, many government officials were booked but the ZP didn't get a report of the present status over the issue.