Jajpur: Lakhs of rupees have allegedly been misappropriated in the alibi of repair and restoration of piped drinking water projects damaged by floods in July and August, 2020 in Jajpur, a report said.
According to the report, 120 piped drinking water projects under RWSS were damaged in the district. The department had claimed to have spent Rs 1. 29 crore towards their repair and restoration, but in fact only 50 projects had been damaged by flood. 1 crore meant for 70 other projects had been misappropriated, it was alleged.
Earlier, it was alleged that over Rs 1.90 crore had been bungled in the name of restoring drinking water projects which were damaged by Titli (October, 2018) and Fani (April, 2019). Then executive engineer of the RWSS, Jajpur Division, had submitted utilization certificates for the restoration work of the damaged drinking water projects.
There were anomalies in generation of utilization certificates (UCs), which pointed to irregularities in fund utilization.
The then engineer-in-chief of the RWSS had pointed out violation of 7-A of the Odisha General Financial Rules after pointing out anomalies. The faulty UCs were returned to the district RWSS.
Various outfits demanded a high level probe into the alleged irregularities in the restoration of projects damaged by Fani, Titli and floods in (July& August, 2020) It was alleged that over Rs 1 crore has been misappropriated through forged bills in the repair of about 70 drinking water projects in July and August.
Bari, Jajpur sadar, Binjharpur and Dasrathpur blocks were worst affected by the floods. People in these blocks sought to know how many project were affected by flood in their areas. They refuse to believe that an average of Rs 1.5 lakh might have been spent for each project as claimed by the RWSS.
Executive engineer of the Jajpur RWSS, Motilal Tiwari said, “UCs of the restoration must have been submitted within 45 days after completion of the work.”
PNN