More coffins out from Railways
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Arun Banerjee
May 13, 2013, 1:39:41 AM5/13/13
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Dear All,Josy Joseph TNN
New Delhi: Besides eight high-profile jobs that Pawan Bansal’s nephew Vijay Singla and gang sold off for a fee, several other key appointments in the senior levels of railways in recent months have come under the scanner.
Among them is a failed bid to manipulate transfers and postings and subvert the investigation into the evasion of thousands of crores in freight charges by iron ore exporters.
The rot in postings runs so deep that railway sources said at least two of the recent executive director-level postings may have been done without mandatory vigilance clearance.
One of the starkest cases was the posting of an officer who is under probe by the railway vigilance and the CBI.
The officer was posted as an executive director a few months ago without vigilance clearance. A senior source said the vigilance file for the particular officer was missing from the railway board records.
The officer was with the Research Design Standard Organization (RDSO) when a major corruption scandal regarding the issuance of licences to vendors was detected. The railway vigilance questioned the officer and later the case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is investigating how only select vendors were getting licence to supply to the railways.
The appointment of the other executive director, who has a key role in procurements of over Rs 10,000 crore a year, was done violating several norms and just two weeks before the railway board member responsible for the appointment retired. According to railway sources, the particular board member who ordered these appointments was known to be a close confidante of Rahul Bhandari, Bansal’s private secretary who is emerging as a key link in the ‘jobs-for-sale’ scandal.
In recent months, there has also been an effort by some key officials to scuttle investigations into the scam perpetrated by iron ore exporters, who fraudulently claimed subsidized tariff meant for domestic consumption. Here too, it was transfers and postings that were used to derail the probe.
Sources said a member of the railway board orchestrated the transfer of a couple of key officials handling the probe into the freight scam, which has turned out to be the biggest financial fraud to hit the railways in many years.
By claiming Rs 300 to Rs 400 per tonne freight charge meant for domestic users, instead of the Rs 2,000 per tonne which is meant for exports, iron ore exporters are now suspected to have cheated the railways of thousand of crores. A railway vigilance team is assisting the CBI and other agencies in investigating the freight fraud, and the CAG is also auditing the matter in various zones of the railways.
--
Arun Banerjee
(M) 9868227877
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Jobs fixed to rig freight scam probe
Rly Sources Say At Least 2 Top Posts Manipulated To Scuttle Investigation
Josy Joseph TNN
New Delhi: Besides eight high-profile jobs that Pawan Bansal’s nephew Vijay Singla and gang sold off for a fee, several other key appointments in the senior levels of railways in recent months have come under the scanner.
Among them is a failed bid to manipulate transfers and postings and subvert the investigation into the evasion of thousands of crores in freight charges by iron ore exporters.
The rot in postings runs so deep that railway sources said at least two of the recent executive director-level postings may have been done without mandatory vigilance clearance.
One of the starkest cases was the posting of an officer who is under probe by the railway vigilance and the CBI.
The officer was posted as an executive director a few months ago without vigilance clearance. A senior source said the vigilance file for the particular officer was missing from the railway board records.
The officer was with the Research Design Standard Organization (RDSO) when a major corruption scandal regarding the issuance of licences to vendors was detected. The railway vigilance questioned the officer and later the case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is investigating how only select vendors were getting licence to supply to the railways.
The appointment of the other executive director, who has a key role in procurements of over Rs 10,000 crore a year, was done violating several norms and just two weeks before the railway board member responsible for the appointment retired. According to railway sources, the particular board member who ordered these appointments was known to be a close confidante of Rahul Bhandari, Bansal’s private secretary who is emerging as a key link in the ‘jobs-for-sale’ scandal.
In recent months, there has also been an effort by some key officials to scuttle investigations into the scam perpetrated by iron ore exporters, who fraudulently claimed subsidized tariff meant for domestic consumption. Here too, it was transfers and postings that were used to derail the probe.
Sources said a member of the railway board orchestrated the transfer of a couple of key officials handling the probe into the freight scam, which has turned out to be the biggest financial fraud to hit the railways in many years.
By claiming Rs 300 to Rs 400 per tonne freight charge meant for domestic users, instead of the Rs 2,000 per tonne which is meant for exports, iron ore exporters are now suspected to have cheated the railways of thousand of crores. A railway vigilance team is assisting the CBI and other agencies in investigating the freight fraud, and the CAG is also auditing the matter in various zones of the railways.
Arun Banerjee
(M) 9868227877
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