Ghose panel suspects financial irregularities

Hyderabad: The Justice Chandra Ghose Commission, which was constituted to go into the irregularities in the Kaleshwaram project including misuse of funds and alleged corruption in the construction of multi-crore lift irrigation project, has now focused on alleged financial irregularities.

The Commission has sought information from officials about Rs 1,600 crore bank guarantees given to the contract agencies of the Medigadda barrage. The Commission questioned the Irrigation Engineers regarding the role of the EE (Executive Engineer) Tirupati Rao in approving the bank guarantee and whether he took permission from higher authorities or not.

The CAG already nailed the previous BRS government on the alleged mismanagement of the loans taken from the banks and paid to the agencies without following any standard procedure.

A group of irrigation officials working at the Kaleshwaram project attended the open house hearing conducted by Justice Ghose on Tuesday. The irrigation officials submitted the details of the release of the funds to the contract agencies and also the bank guarantees given to the agencies for the construction of the barrages mainly Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla under Kaleshwaram.

The Commission suspects foul play of the engineers in giving bank guarantees to the agencies and asked the officials to furnish more details about the release of funds.

Sources said that the CAG findings in the alleged misuse of funds and the escalation of the estimations also came for discussion in the enquiry. The Commission quizzed the officials for not bringing the required documents to support their statements.

The engineers informed the commission that Medigadda and two other barrages were damaged due to heavy inflows. Officials said that all the agencies were asked to conduct a study to find out the main reason for the damage of the blocks at the barrage sites.

Engineers said that the project designs and drawings were prepared by the government supported consultancy - WAPCOS and the designs were approved by the Chief Engineer of the CDO (Central Design Organization) before taking up the works. Warangal -NIT has taken up a study before the start of the construction of the project and the barrages, they informed the commission.