The Karnataka government has set up a committee headed by retired High Court judge H.N. Nagamohan Das to probe the “40% commission” allegation levelled by the Karnataka State Contractors’ Association during the previous BJP regime. The committee has been asked to submit the report in 30 days.
This order comes at a time when the State government led by the Congress and contractors have been engaged in a face-off over clearance of pending bills in various departments. In some departments, bills are pending from the last three years.
Letter to PM
President of the association D. Kempanna had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2021 and then Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai about how the contactors were forced to pay 25 to 30% bribery (commission) to elected representatives and officials before the commencement of work and another 5 to 6% for the release of no-objection certificate. The complaint had also alleged that the bribery package of the the BJP government was favouring contractors who hailed from other States.
The probe order issued by the Public Works Department on Thursday said, “Although these allegations were serious in nature, no probe was conducted at the government level and the new government intends to implement transparency in governance.”
The order also sated that the committee is set up based on Mr. Kempanna’s complaint to investigate the package system, tender process, revised estimates, and other practices in the departments where a large number of projects were taken up. The government has directed Mr. Nagamohan Das to seek assistance of technical advisers, financial advisers, and others.
What probe will cover
The order has directed to probe the nature of administrative approvals, quality assessment of completed works, cost estimation, variation in project cost during implementation, generation of fake bills, and others.
A few weeks ago, the Urban Development Department had formed four special investigation teams to probe projects approved and executed in the last three years in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
