Official evaluation doesn't 'impress' VB

CHANDIGARH: After about two months of raids and inspections on the properties owned by former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, preparing a “correct evaluation� chart has become an onerous task for the Vigilance Bureau (VB).
Sources said the evaluation by the official team, comprising XENs and SDOs from the PWD, had not gone down well with the VB officials, primarily because the estimate prepared by the team looked “far less impressive� than what the VB would have liked to project.
In order to prepare the “right� estimate, the VB proposes to hire private agencies in New Delhi. The VB officials, however, have yet to confirm whether the private agencies’ estimate would be legally tenable.
Officially the VB has cited “incompetence� of the PWD officials to prepare a correct estimate, in view of sophisticated construction design and material used by the Badal family, as the reason for another evaluation. But well placed sources said the VB had decided to hire private agencies after the official team declined to toe its line of projection.
At the Orbit Resorts in Gurgaon and the Sector 9 residence in Chandigarh, the Badal family is believed to have used construction material purchased from abroad, which the official team was “incapable of assessing in terms of money.�
Sources said the VB and the PWD officials had failed arrive at a consensus on the matter.
While Badal’s son, Sukhbir Badal, had claimed to have invested around Rs 60 crore in the Orbit Resort complex, the VB officials estimate the total expenditure to be around Rs 150 crore.
Similarly, for the renovation of the Sector 9 residence, while Sukhbir is said have spent around Rs 90 lakh, the VB officials feel could be atleast 50 per cent higher than the quoted figure.