The officials were named in the report for deliberately overlooking the irregularities in the tenders allotted for the road contracts. A total of 10 officials including four IAS officers were named in the report. K Vijayakarthikeyan (former Commissioner of Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation), former Commissioner of Chennai Corporation G Prakash, former Deputy Commissioner (works) Kandasamy and former Deputy Commissioner (Health) Madhusudhan Reddy are the IAS officers. Former Deputy commissioner of Coimbatore Gandhimathi has also been named in the report.
Chennai: The DVAC has named a total of 10 officials including four IAS officers in its report. They have been found involved by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption, in illegally and unfairly awarding contracts to companies linked with corruption-tainted former Minister of Municipal Administration SP Velumani. The DVAC in its report On September 25, 2021 said that the officials from Chennai and Coimbatore Corporation were involved in a criminal conspiracy that resulted in huge loss to the government.
DVAC authorities filed an FIR against the former Minister on August 9, 2021. During his tenure as the Minister from 2014-2021, Velumani awarded tenders to 10 companies allegedly linked to him–Senthil and Co, Maha Ganapathi Jewellry, Vardhan Infrastructure, KCP Engineers pvt Ltd, CR Constructions, ACE Tech, Aalayam Foundation, Hosur builders, Constronics India, Constromoll goods and Aalam Gold– which witnessed a massive growth.
The probe into Velumani’s corruption was initiated after Arappor Iyakkam, an anti-corruption NGO based out of Chennai had filed a complaint on September 12, 2018 that a few companies had won 53 contracts worth Rs 130 crore floated by the Chennai and Coimbatore Corporations.
K Vijayakarthikeyan (former Commissioner of Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation), former Commissioner of Chennai Corporation G Prakash, former Deputy Commissioner (works) Kandasamy and former Deputy Commissioner (Health) Madhusudhan Reddy are the four IAS officers named in the report.
The DVAC found that the officials deliberately overlooked the irregularities in the tenders given for the road contracts and other contracts that cost the state exchequer a loss of nearly Rs 30 crore.
The confidential report which was released very recently, demanded the suspected officers in the scam to be added as additional accused. Though the report established the role of the officers in the scam, media reports suggested that the government did not give its consent to prosecute the officials named in the corruption scandal.
Other officials named by the DVAC are: former Coimbatore Corporation Deputy Commissioner Gandhimathi, former Chennai Corporation Chief Engineer L Nandakumar, former Chennai Corporation Executive Engineer R Senthilnathan, former Coimbatore Corporation Assistant Executive Engineer K Saravana Kumar, former Coimbatore Corporation Assistant Engineer SP Ravikannan and former Coimbatore Corporation Draughtsman Anitha Josephine.
In one of the scams that took place in the Chennai Corporation, Executive Engineer( Bus Route Roads Department) Senthilnathan, Superintending Engineer (Roads and Bridges) L Nandakumar Chief Engineer (general) Pugazhendhi and Deputy Commissioner (works) who were members of the Technical Scrutinising Committee of Chennai Corporation, failed to notice the irregularities committed by M/s SP Builders which is allegedly closely linked to the former Minister. The DVAC said that it was a pre-meditated conspiracy and found that the officials awarded six road contracts to M/s SP Builders without adopting any tender procedures even though the tender amount was very high. This resulted in a loss of Rs 2,76,34,869 to the Corporation.
According to the DVAC, CR Constructions saw a growth of a whopping 11363% between FY 2012-13 and 2018-19. Constronics India, which started in 2014, went from a turnover of Rs 0.86 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 42.11 crore in 2017-18 - a growth of over 4700%. Vardhan Infrastructure went from registering a turnover of Rs. 2.02 crore in 2012-13 to Rs 66.72 crore in 2018-19 - growing more than 3200% in a span of six years.
It is to be noted that two separate raids have been conducted by the DVAC authorities in properties belong to former Minister SP Velumani and his aides in Coimbatore and across Tamilnadu since May 2021 after the DMK stormed to power. The MK Stalin led government had reiterated several times as a poll promise that exposing SP Velumani and his aide’s scams to the public legally will be one of his top priorities.
Read: 'Legal action will be taken against corrupt S P Velumani after elected to power' - M K Stalin in Coimbatore
Arappor Iyakkam had repeatedly stressed on social media that the officials who aided this corruption should be prosecuted along with former Minister SP Velumani and had been questioning the DMK government on the delay in adding their names. Adding these 10 officials names to the DVAC case has finally set a direction for this case to move forward in prosecution.