Vigilance detects irregularities in SFC;RM, DyFA, others booked for favouring blue eyed forest contractor

By admin On Oct 22, 2016

All SFC officers posted from time to time at Doda, Bhadarwah favoured and facilitated a single blue eyed contractor

STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: The State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) on Friday registered an FIR against former Regional Manager State Forest Corporation (SFC) Doda, former Deputy Financial Advisor (DyFA) SFC, Contractor Abdul Qayoom Bhagwan and others for their involvement in gross irregularities thus causing huge losses to the state exchequer.
It has been ascertained that all the concerned SFC officers posted from time to time at Doda and Bhadarwah favoured and facilitated blue eyed contractor Abdul Qayoom Bhagwan without inducing competition as per rules as if no other SFC contractor existed in J&K. One after the other sanction, extension was given to the said blue eyed contractor whose performance was below par at the cost of state exchequer.
FIR 22/2016 under section 5 (1) (d) r/w 5 (2) J&K P.C Act 2006 and 120-B RPC has been registered against Asgar Inayatullah, the then Regional Manager State Forest Corporation (SFC) Doda, Sant Ram, the then Deputy Financial Advisor SFC, Contractor Abdul Qayoom Bhagwan and other officers/officials of SFC J&K on the basis of a preliminary enquiry conducted into the allegations of gross irregularities.
Undue payments were made to a blue eyed contractor by SFC vis-à-vis shortage of stocks in compartment number 33/Jai Bhadarwah. It has been further revealed that without inviting any tender under rules, the then General Manager SFC namely Milkha Singh Jamwal (now expired) on September, 29, 1992 accorded sanction vide No. 1389-94 to contractor named Abdul Qayoom Bhagwan authorizing him to start work of Felling, H/Sawing and Pathroo for a volume of 50,000 cft in compartment No 33/Jai Bhadarwah which was to be completed by the end of December 1992.
Another sanction vide No. 54 of 1993-94 dated May 18, 1993 was accorded to the same contractor and volume of 50000 cft was enhanced to 1.28 lakh cft at the rate of Rs 16.50/cft even when he had not completed the previous work in the stipulated time frame.
As per the fresh sanction, contractor was to deliver the stocks (including volume of sanction No. 1389-94) at Forest loading point Jai by end of November 1994.
The said contract was further extended from forest loading point to road side Amira Nagar to carry out road transportation for sawn volume 1.28 lakh cft at the rate of Rs 9/cft by end of March 1994 vide sanction No. 86 of 1993-94 dated August 12, 1993.
Not only working period of the contractor was extended by the SFC but the nature of the contract was also changed. Further, payment of Rs. 13.97 lakhs was released in favour of the contractor against 6 bills without obtaining work done report in five bills from the field.
The said contractor was further facilitated by SFC officials by allowing him to bring down the extracted stocks to Thathri on same rates of Amiranagar, Bhadarwah and in this way additional 60 kms were added as the extracted stocks were later transported to SFC depot Jammu.
According to vigilance, L.K Sharma, the then DM SFC Bhadarwah, facilitated the blue eyed contractor by placing work order for change of mode of transportation despite the fact that the stocks were still lying in the forest and not even had reached ‘forest head loading point’.
The stocks of 33/Jai continued lying in the Jai forest for next one year when another extension was granted to the said blue eyed contractor by Asgar Anayatullah, Regional Manager (Ext) SFC, East Circle Doda who also added Rs 1.75 per Cft. in the original sanction for construction of road which was a wrong entry as the mode of transportation was already changed on the written request of contractor itself. Kabir Naik, the then DM SFC Bhadarwah vide letter No. J&K/SFC/B 866 dated August 31, 1994 wrote one letter to Asgar Inayatullah for obtaining additional sanction of rates for activities which was in contravention to instructions given by R.P Sharma, MD SFC, on the application of the contractor that rates to be fixed which in any case should not exceed already sanctioned rates upto Amiranagar.
Asgar Inayatullah while accepting the recommendation of Kabir Naik gave another ambiguous approval to the contractor on December 16, 1994 at his own level instead of placing the proposal before the SFC Management for financial approval from FA/CAO.
The said sanction was totally unauthorized as never approved by the FA/CAO. The above sanction dated December 16, 1994 remained non operative even upto finalisation of the contract by the finance wing of SFC.
Another sanction was given to the said contractor by Regional Manager (East) vide endorsement dated January 15, 1998, for transporting SFC timber stock to the tune of 20000 scants from loading station Kahara to SFC Sales depot, Jammu within fifteen days and the payment to the activity at the rate of Rs 11.13 per cft will be made only after the stocks are delivered in Sale Depots and reconciled thereof.
Interestingly, only number of scants (i.e fig 20000) were mentioned without mentioning the volume in cft as a result one cannot draw the exact value of the contract. The above facts clearly shows that all the concerned SFC officers posted from time to time at Doda and Bhaderwah favoured and facilitated blue eyed contractor Abdul Qayoom Bhagwan without inducing competition as per rules as if no other SFC contractor existed in J&K. One after the other sanction, extension was given to the said blue eyed contractor whose performance was below par at the cost of state exchequer. Further investigation of the case has been set in motion.