Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
If the sources are to be believed, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) official, visited Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation (CSMC), on Friday evening and procured necessary documents and papers relating to the tender of Prime Minister Awas Yojana (PMAY) from the civic authorities.
It may be noted that during the daytime, the six teams of ED were busy conducting raids at different places owned by the three city contractors. The ED official spent around 2 hours on the CSMC campus on Friday late in the evening. For the first time in the history of the municipal corporation, the ED has visited the headquarters. During interaction with the key officers, the team handed over the list of documents needed by them. Hence the civic authorities handed over the documents as per the list, said the sources.
Meanwhile, the municipal corporation is maintaining strict confidentiality about the ED inquiry. Earlier, the ED officer had demanded some necessary papers from the municipal administrator Abhijeet Chaudhari, however, he requested to take the documents from the state government. The most important point which is in favour of the CSMC is that it has not received any funds from either the Central Government or the State Government.
Where did CSMC go wrong?
The municipal corporation floated the tender for
Constructing 1000 residential blocks at Padegaon (under PMAY) in March 2022. It has done so because Padegaon’s land was available. Later on, the district administration provided land (in phases), and henceforth the contract for additional work was subsequently given to Samrath Construction Co. Hence the contractor, who was originally appointed to construct 1000 blocks got the contract of constructing 39,000 blocks. Hence the ED pin-pointed this allotment and investigated the case in detail.