New Delhi, Sept 25: The Economic Offences Wing has found in its probe into works done under the Jal Jeevan Mission in Madhya Pradesh that while Rs 3.85 crore was paid to the contractor, the latter executed substandard work and secured payments in collusion with three officials of the Public Health Engineering department.
During its probe into the irregularities under the scheme in several villages in Madhya Pradesh’s Mauganj district, the EOW found evidence of the substandard work that was done, including collapsed tanks, missing taps, incomplete pipework and halted water supply.
The probe followed a complaint and physical verification of the works in four villages Judmania Raghunath, Khatkhari, Karah alias Bairagarh and Shivrajpur in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state.
The projects were awarded in 2021 under the ‘Har Ghar Nal Jal’ programme, with a nine-month deadline for completion.
It was found during investigation that while pipelines had been laid in several places, the infrastructure that was needed to actually supply water to individual households was missing or incomplete. Moreover, in one village, an overhead water tank collapsed during its first filling, reported Indian Express.
The investigation agency has named contractor Tiwari, and then PHE officials A.P. Tiwari, Sanjay Pandey and J.P. Dwivedi as accused in the case.
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