ACB nabs 9 after raids across Rajasthan, Delhi in JJM scam probe

Jaipur: A Special Investigation Team of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Tuesday arrested nine persons – six serving senior Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) officials and three of its retired engineers – after conducting coordinated raids across Rajasthan and in New Delhi in connection with the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) scam.Sources in the bureau said teams also attempted to locate a recently-retired senior IAS officer during the operation, but could not trace him.
Tuesday's arrests followed simultaneous searches in Jaipur, Barmer, Udaipur, Karauli, New Delhi and other locations in connection with an FIR registered by the ACB in 2024.According to the ACB, the case pertains to large-scale irregularities in awarding tenders under the Centre's Jal Jeevan Mission to provide rural tap water connections.Officials said the investigation revealed that two companies – Ganpati Tubewell Company owned by one Mahesh Mittal and Shyam Tubewell Company owned by one Padamchand Jain – submitted forged work completion certificates purportedly issued by the Central govt-owned company IRCON International Ltd to secure contracts worth around Rs 960 crore.The ACB alleged that senior PHED officials colluded with the two firms and manipulated tender conditions. Investigators found that a mandatory site-visit certificate was introduced in major projects worth above Rs 50 crore in violation of norms to allegedly exposE bidders' identities, facilitate tender pooling and enable inflated premiums that were later approved by department officials. The bureau identified the serving officials arrested as chief engineer (Administration) Dinesh Goyal, chief engineer (Rural) K D Gupta, additional chief engineer (Jaipur Zone-II) Subhanshu Dixit, financial advisor (Renewable Energy) Sushil Sharma, chief engineer (Churu) Niril Kumar and suspended executive engineer Vishal Saxena.The retired officials arrested by the ACB are former additional chief engineer Arun Shrivastava, former chief engineer and technical member D K Gaud and former superintending engineer Mahendra Prakash Soni.The ACB said the irregularities resulted in corruption amounting to thousands of crores of rupees. Officials said that further investigations are underway, and more action is likely.