IMPHAL, March 26: The Manipur Development Society has made a fraudulent payment of Rs 2.74 crores to a contractor for supply of building material based on fictitious records.
According to a records verification of the Manipur Development Society on May 2010, it came to light that cement and steel were purchased from two suppliers for construction of two district sports complexes at Kodompokpi and Kakching. For the said developmental works, it was found that a quantity of 1,715 metric tons of cement valued at Rs 120.5 lacs and 297 metric tons of steel valued at Rs 154.44 lacs were procured for the construction of sports complexes by the contractor and the MDS on March 2009 also made a payment of 2.74 crores to the contractor for supply of the building material including transportation costs.
The bills submitted by the contractor mentioned that the materials were transported by 33 trucks to the work site. A thorough scrutiny of the said bills, delivery challans including the supply orders by the comptroller and auditor general has found many irregularities in the system. It was found out that, two supply orders of 200 metric tons and 353 metric tons of steel bars of five different sizes were made, but the sizes of the steel rods were not specified in the supply order.
Further, both the bill copies and delivery challans of the Guwahati and Dimapur firms were also found to be made in the same handwriting, the most significant fraud is that out of the 33 supply trucks engaged for making the supply deliveries, it was found that on scrutiny of the registration numbers of the said trucks, one turned out to be a small vehicle (tata 407) of the police department, another number was found to be belonging to an auto rickshaw while another number submitted by the contractor also turned out to be of a two wheeler (kinetic zoom). Three truck numbers were also not registered and another number had been changed to another registration number with effect from March 2008.
Even more astonishing is the fact that addresses of the two suppliers could not be traced and correspondences to the said cement and steel firms were returned saying that no such firms existed.
The circumstances states that payments for the supply of the material appears to be made on fictitous records and a fraudulent payment of Rs 2.74 crores was made to the contractor for contruction of the said sports complexes. The matter was intimated to the state government by the accountant general on July 2010 but reply has not been received as of yet.