The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered an alleged case of corruption against Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd (MEIL), eight officials of NMDC Limited and NMDC Iron and Steel Plant (NISP) Limited, and two officials of MECON Limited, which come under the Ministry of Steel, in connection with a work contract worth over ₹314.57 crore.
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Through electoral bonds, MEIL had donated ₹584 crore to the BJP, ₹195 crore to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), and ₹85 crore to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), besides ₹37 crore to the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), ₹28 crore to Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and ₹18 crore to the Indian National Congress. Its subsidiary, Western U.P. Power Transmission Company Limited, donated ₹110 crore to the Congress and ₹80 crore to the BJP, as reported earlier.
The CBI registered the First Information Report (FIR) on March 31. Among the accused are MEIL, its general manager Subhash Chandra Sangras; NMDC Limited’s executive director (now retired) Prasant Dash; NMDC director (production)/NISP director Dilip Kumar Mohanty; NISP deputy general manager Pradeep Kumar Bhuyan; deputy manager (survey) Naresh Babu, senior manager Suvro Banerjee, and chief general manager (finance) L. Krishna Mohan (now retired).
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K. Rajshekhar, NMDC general manager (finance), and Somnath Ghosh, manager (finance); Sanjeev Sahay, now-retired MECON Limited assistant general manager (contracts) and K. Illavarsu, its now-retired deputy general manager (contracts), have also been named.
The agency had launched a preliminary inquiry into the allegation of corruption on August 10, 2023 based on a complaint lodged by the NMDC’s (Hyderabad) chief vigilance officer, against Mr. Dash and unknown others.
It was alleged that a contract for the works of intake well and pump house, drinking water treatment plant, and cross-country pipeline, including five years’ operation and maintenance, at Chhattisgarh’s Jagdalpur, had been awarded to MEIL. The contract between NMDC Limited and a consortium comprising MEIL and Koya Company Construction Limited (Hyderabad) was executed on January 23, 2015. The project was to be commissioned in 24 months.
The CBI came across email communications which revealed that payments were made to the accused officials for various favours, including clearance of bills and invoices. The company allegedly prepared fake vouchers in some cases to show that payments were made to labourers. The agency also found details of the amounts which, as decided, were to be given to different officials.
Based on the findings, the CBI alleged that the eight officials of NISP and NMDC Limited had received ₹73,85,517, and two officials of MECON Limited had received ₹5,01,735 as against the payment of over ₹174.41 crore by NMDC Limited to MEIL with respect to 73 invoices raised by MEIL and Mr. Sangras till December 2018.