Imphal, January 05: Following the recent decision of the State Cabinet to evoke provisions of the Manipur Public Servant Personnel Liabilities Act and fix responsibility in connection with awarding contract works worth Rs 29 crores out of the purview of the Khuga Multipurpose Project, Vigilance has conducted an inquiry and narrowed down on EE in-charge of the project as the main culprit.

Consequently, in its report submitted to the Government, the Vigilance has recommended recovering the amount from the EE in-charge concerned.

A reliable source said the contract works worth Rs 29 crores which are out of the purview of the Khuga Multipurpose Project had been awarded without approval of the Govt.During the course of the inquiry conducted acting on the recent State Cabinet decision, the Vigilance detected that the EE of Khuga Head Work Division, IFCS was responsible for awarding the contract works without the approval of the authorities concerned, the source disclosed.

Out of 631 work orders awarded by the EE during 2005-06, 308 of them did not have the approval of the authorities concerned, th source said, adding that the total estimated cost of the work orders not approved by the authorities is around Rs 15,10,85,959 .

In the report of the inquiry submitted to the Government, the Vigilance recommended giving major penalty to the erring EE after conducting a departmental inquiry so that the amount of the works allotted by him without the approval of the authorities concerned could be recovered from him in evocation of the provisions given under the Manipur Public Servant Personal Liabilities.

The unapproved work orders issued by the EE related to construction of drainage, retaining walls and road, the source added.

It may be noted here that although over a amount of Rs 11 crores pertaining to work orders which are out of the purview of the project had been withdrawn, the Government had frozen the work orders of over Rs 6.11 crores after it got wind of the matter.

The total cost of the project which was earlier estimated as Rs 294 crores has been revised to Rs 335.11 crores during the recent Cabinet meeting.

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