Uttarakhand: Scam of Transport Corporation came to light, scam running into crores
Recently the audit report of Uttarakhand Transport Corporation has come. In which a scam of Rs 1.32 crore has come to light in the auction of junk buses. According to the report of the Accountant General’s Office, there is a huge difference in the amount of auction of buses in Dehradun, Nainital and Tanakpur divisions during the year 2020 to 2023.
Collusion with contractors even in e-tender process
Scam worth Rs 1.32 crore exposed in Transport Corporation
The audit report has revealed that the Transport Corporation has shown the auction of buses at Rs 7.09 crore. Whereas in the TCS return this price was stated as Rs 8.42 crore. It was told that the Transport Corporation could not give any concrete answer to this. In the audit report, objection has also been raised on the amount of Rs 29.54 crore kept by the Transport Corporation in a private bank.
Transport Corporation does not take any step for its money
According to the Accountant General’s Office, as per the orders of the Finance Section of Uttarakhand Government, all the undertakings and corporations of the state government have to deposit their funds in public and nationalized banks. But out of 34 accounts of the Transport Corporation, eight accounts are being operated in private banks.
Along with this, investigation also found that the corporation does not take any steps to recover its money. Rs 25.76 crore is pending for payment of buses for Lok Sabha elections-2019, Assembly elections-2022 and public welfare schemes run by the government. But till now the Transport Corporation has not made any effort for this.
The bus did not run but lakhs of rupees were paid for fast tag
Investigation has revealed that contracted buses are being operated with departmental connivance. It has been told in the report that the Transport Corporation has also paid Rs 2.43 lakh for the fast tag of the Volvo bus which was not operated by the Transport Corporation. Many more such financial irregularities have been detected in the audit investigation report.
According to the audit report, till March 2023, a total of 1243 buses (919 Transport Corporation’s own and 324 contracted) were operating in the Transport Corporation. Cameras and GPS were to be installed in all buses for the safety of passengers and monitoring of buses. Whose tender was given to a contractor. Investigation found that the Transport Corporation did not make any arrangement to monitor the buses. Apart from the Volvo buses, cameras in all other buses were broken and GPS were also switched off.
Collusion with contractors even in e-tender process
According to the audit report, a scam has also come to light in the e-tender process of the corporation. In this, collusion with contractors has been exposed. During this period, 12 e-tenders were examined in which it was revealed that six e-tenders were filed from the same computer. The audit team made this disclosure after examining the IP address of the computer.
Along with this, questions have also been raised in the audit report regarding the contract of dhabas contracted by the Transport Corporation for stopping buses. The allegation is that the tender was put by someone else while the contract was given to someone else. In the year 2022-23, the corporation earned an income of Rs 4.11 crore from the contracted dhabas, but the corporation could not provide information about other facilities related to the contracted firm. Let us tell you that vigilance investigation is also going on against the corporation officials in this matter.
