Electricity board employee booked for fraud

RANCHI: The vigilance wing of the Jharkhand State Electricity Board has found the board''s member (technical) S N Akhouri guilty of fabrication and forgery of documents in connection with the awarding of job contract for construction of 52 power sub-stations all over the state.
An FIR was lodged on late Saturday night with the Hatia police station against Akhouri under Sections 420, 464, 465, 467, 468, 469, 471 and 477A of the IPC and Section 30 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.The JSEB had given the job of constructing 33/11 power sub-stations in the state in four packages to the lowest bidder Jyoti Construction Ltd of Mumbai as recommended by Mecon at the cost of Rs 131.12 crore.
But the contract gave rise to a controversy the day it was awarded. Objections were raised by the state energy department which recommended that the job be distributed in different packages to other bidders also, including the second lowest bidder. In its last objection letter to the JSEB, the department said that the rate of the Jyoti Construction Ltd was very high and that an inquiry should be made into the deal. Chief minister Marandi later ordered a vigilance inquiry.
However, even as the inquiry is pending, the JSEB''s vigilance IG Kumud Chaudhary found in course of her probe into the matter (initiated before the government inquiry) that Akhouri had fabricated and forged a document dated June 29, 2002 on which he had earlier signed his approval.
Akhouri was found guilty of writing price too high just above his signature on the document which was sent to him by the JSEB chief engineer for approval of the lowest bidder''s rate.
Chaudhary found that Akhouri''s intentions were to show "favour" to the second lowest bidder Alstom Ltd, a Kolkata-based company, and that he had indulged in "financial irregularities and misappropriation".