Srinagar
Crime Branch of police on Friday carried raids at several places in central Ganderbal, southern Shopian and northern Kupwara districts besides others places in connection with major scams in Jammu and Kashmir Projects Construction Corp (JKPCC) including while Dilip Thusoo was its Managing Director.
The J&K administration had last year handed over the investigation to the crime branch of the state police, which registered an FIR and started investigations. “Raids are presently going at several places including at Ganderbal, Kupwara and Shopian districts,” newsagency GNS quoted a senior officer of the Crime Branch as saying.
According to then administration, handing over the probe to CBI was a major step towards “eradication of corruption in the corporation, stopping and eliminating backdoor appointments and bringing in a culture of transparency, probity and efficiency.”
The probe was ordered amid numerous complaints about the functioning of JKPCC, particularly relating to corruption in civil contracts, illegality in appointments at multiple levels and excessive cost and time overruns. The probe followed the appointed of a fact-finding committee by the government to look into all these allegations.
The committee, as per the government, looked into the manner of awarding contracts to contractors often on a nomination basis without following transparent tendering procedures, diverting funds from one project to another leading to a large number of incomplete projects.
Apart from these, the committee also looked into irregularities in appointments at various levels, including that of the Managing Director, inefficiency in functioning and huge time and cost overruns in project implementation, reasons for estimates for construction being much higher than those of the PWD. It had submitted a voluminous report bringing out in detail large irregularities in the operation of the JKPCC and recommended on improving the corporation, a government spokesman had said at the time of announcing the Crime Branch probe.
Pertinently, Thusoo, was promoted as MD JKPCC by the government in 2008 and year later, he was attached to GAD by Omar Abdullah regime for allegedly providing wrong information to the Chief Minister. A few months later Thusoo was again reinstated and appointed as Managing Director JK Housing Board. He was later given charge of Secretary Sports Council. Subsequently, the then PDP-BJP government again reinstated Thusoo as MD JKPCC. (GNS)
