Ex-civic chief, staff booked for corruption in Kalyan

THANE: The former chief of the Kalyan-Dombivli civic body, Govind Rathod, senior officials and a developer were booked by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Friday for allegedly siphoning off Rs 3.43 crore from the basic services for urban poor (BSUP) scheme sponsored by the Centre.
The other officials have been identified as city engineer Patilbuva Ugale, executive engineer Ravi Jouras, project management consultant Subash Patil and the director of Niv Infrastructure, Jitendra C Jain.Jain was awarded the contract to build towers for housing the urban poor.
In 2012, TOI had carried a series of reports, exposing the corruption in the BSUP scheme. The ensuing furore led the state government to initiate an inquiry through the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). A criminal writ petition was also filed in the Bombay high court to investigate the multi-crore scandal. Former chief minister Prithivraj Chavan, who had visited Kalyan in October 2012 to hand over the keys to the BSUP scheme beneficiaries, was advised by the police against giving out the keys as the projects in Ambedkar Nagar and Datta Nagar were mired in a controversy.
On Friday, ACB sources said a probe was carried out and offences under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act were registered against the five at the Bazarpeth police station. “There was a complaint about the irregularities in the scheme implemented by the civic body after which an inquiry was ordered into the allegations in September 2014,” said ACB superintendent Datta Karale.