Delhi Jal Board scam: A scam of Rs 20 crore in the water bill department of the Delhi Jal Board has surfaced. Authorities have so far arrested three people including owners and directors of two companies -- Fresh Pay IT Solutions and RM e-Payments -- who were responsible for collecting water bills.
According to reports, the accused had embezzled the amount paid by the people in the Kiosk through checks instead of depositing them in the accounts of the Jal Board.
Many officials of the Delhi Jal Board are under suspicion and some more arrests may happen soon.
The scam was done in connivance with the officials of Delhi Jal Board. The Anti-Corruption Bureau is trying to trace such officers.
According to ACB Chief Madhur Verma, the names of the arrested accused are Rajendran Nair, Gopi Kumar Kedia and Dr. Abhilash Vasukuttan Pillai.
According to Madhur Verma, kiosks were installed in all the offices of Delhi Jal Board to pay the water bill.
The Jal Board had given the contract to the above mentioned companies to collect water bills. The Jal Board had entrusted the work of installation of Automatic Bill Payment Collection Machines in various Jal Board offices to Corporation Bank (now Union Bank of India) for the convenience of the consumers.
Consumers used to pay the bill via cash and cheque.
Corporation Bank further awarded this contract to Fresh Pay IT Solutions, who further gave it to RM e-payments company.
Keeping the rules and regulations in check, the contract for collecting bills every year was given to these companies only. The contract of these companies was till October 10, 2019 only, but RM e-Payments continued to collect bills illegally till March 2020.
A complaint was lodged with the ACB after a preliminary inquiry by the Jal Board revealed embezzlement of crores in the fund.
An FIR was registered last year after detection of embezzlement of more than 20 crores in connivance with officials of Corporation Bank (now Union Bank of India) and Jal Board.
Investigation revealed that RM e-Payments had collected the amount from various kiosks and brought it to its office at Connaught Place.
It embezzled some of the collected cash and deposited some in the Central Bank account. After that the officials of the company transferred some money to the Jal Board accounts through RTGS as per their convenience.
The company did not transfer the entire amount to the accounts of the Jal Board.
(More to follow...)
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