The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has exposed a scam of the Haryana government in which the top brass of Faridabad municipal corporation cleared ₹183 crore worth of payments in multiple instalments of under ₹5 lakh to a single contractor for mostly cooked up city development works for five years.
The Faridabad municipality is understood to have adopted this innovative way of syphoning off public money to avoid seeking clearance from higher officials if the payment exceeded ₹5 lakh.
Initial finding
The initial finding of the CAG’s Accountant General office of Haryana, which was accessed by BusinessLine, revealed that contractor Satbir Singh, a resident of Parvatiaya Colony of Faridabad, was allegedly arbitrarily awarded contracts for five years, beginning in 2015, ignoring e-tendering government rules and urban local bodies department guidelines. He subsequently received payments from Faridabad municipal corporation through 588 vouchers, running into ₹183.83 crore, calculated the CAG auditors. The findings will be included in the CAG’s compliance audit report on urban local bodies department of Haryana for the year March 31, 2022, and made public subsequently.
Though the corruption issue was raked up in the past, attempts were allegedly made to brush it aside. A committee constituted by the municipal commissioner on the demand of local councillors concluded in March 2021 that the government lost ₹23.65 crore since neither contractor nor junior…
