IMPHAL, October 15: The Central Vigilance Commission will soon be coming in the State to investigate the multi crore Loktak Lake scam, informed a highly replaced source.
According to the highly placed source from the Central government, a team of the Central Vigilance Commission is in the process of linking up with the CBI State unit on the Loktak lake scam.
It is also learnt from the highly placed source that the Rs 224 crore is just a part of the scam and a bigger amount is involved in the scam.
The total estimation for the conservation and management of the Loktak Lake as prepared by the State government was Rs 500 crores. This amount was placed before the Planning Commission of India in 2007-08, the source informed.
Giving in to the demand of the State government, the then Congress government in the Centre had given its administrative approval for the Centre to sanction atleast Rs 400 crores, it said.
The source also disclosed that the Loktak Development Agency had sanctioned the first phase amount of Rs 3.61 crore on August 21, 2008 on trial basis to the Progressive Construction Limited which is based in Hyderabad without any process of tendering.
This conduct of bypassing the process of tendering is violation of the Central Public Works Department norms, the source added.
The source informed that the work was awarded to the single bidder PCL with the agreement demanding completion of the work of clearing the phumdis within two weeks.
The source said the total amount of phumdis to be cleared was 10 lakhs cubic sq metre.
On the other hand, on August 1, 2009, the second phase work amounting to Rs 224, 39,14,035/- was awarded to a new company K-Pro Infra Work Private Limited based in New Delhi which is reported to have been registered just after the LDA notified for tendering of the project, it said.
The company was also the lone bidder of the project, it said.
It is also informed that another Rs 22 crores was loaned to K-Pro as mobilisation fund with zero interest by the LDA after the company was rewarded the work in the first week of November 2009.
When K-Pro started work, the machineries and staff used were hired labourers from LDA as per the agreement signed between K-Pro and LDA on November 2, 2009, the source maintained.
Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/central-vigilance-commission-to-investigate-manipur-loktak-scam-soon-source/