BY MOHD MAJID MALIK ,DODA,APR12—While the State Accountability Commission issued notices to Gulchain Singh Charak former Minister for works, several officers of the Jammu and Kashmir Project Construction Corporation (JKPCC) and a high profile private contractor taking cognisance of a complaint with regards to Rs. 30 cr Ganpat Bridge project and also sought comments from Chief Minister Omar Abdullah who is the Chairman of the Coprporation, media learnt that several other projects worth crores allotted to the same contractor
allegedly at the behest of politicians and bureaucrats flouting codal formalities were incomplete even as payments against them stand released.
Sources in the JKPCC disclosed that two important road projects which were alloted to AK construction 215 Bahu Plaza Jammu besides Ganpat bridge included 15 kms Changa- Kal Jugasar road worth 22 cr and 18 kms Gandoh- Jei road at a project cost of 25 cr. “Both these projects along with the Ganpat bridge were allotted to AK Constructions at the behest of a senior bureaucrat who was the principal private secretary to then Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and a Congress MP of the state” disclosed a source in the JKPCC. “in order to forgo the tendering process on these projects worth 77 cr, the bureaucrat constituted a committee comprising then Chief Engineer R&B M M Sharma, then MD JKPCC Mohammad Subhan Najar and then commissioner secretary R&B, who recommended that AK Constructions was competent and capable of handling such projects and had accomplished similar projects in the past to the satisfaction. Following the recommendations of the committee the works were allotted to the said contractor. Sources also allege that the bureaucrat and the MP were suitably compensated by the said contractor.
The sources also disclosed that just as crucial Ganpat bridge has been abandoned by the contractor for years, only the earth work has been done on both the road projects while the payments have been
released by the department without verifications under the pressure of political patrons of the contractor. While all the three projects of vital public importance were still incomplete, the benevolent bureaucrat and the politician got palatial farm houses made by the contractor at Bajalta and old samba road respectively.
It is ironical that while the former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad was vouching to root out corruption from the state from every public platform, his own confidants were flouting all norms to allot works worth tens of crores for ulterior motives.