No action yet on misuse of WB fund for official’s b’day bash

BY V L SRINIVASAN

Published on July 19, 2006

Hyderabad: The State Government is sitting tight on a report of the Vigilance & Enforcement (V&E) wing recommending initiation of disciplinary action. Against as many as seven officials of the forest department, including principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) S K Das, for the alleged misuse of World Bank funds among other things.

The V&E officials took up the investigation as per the orders of Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy following reports of irregularities allegedly committed by these officials. Though the report was submitted a year ago, no action has been taken.

Besides Das, the other officials against whom action was recommended included Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF) R G Kalaghatgi, Conservators of Forests (CF) S K Gupta and N Shyam Prasad, one Divisional Forest Officer and others.

The charges against the accused officials were that they did not take action against those responsible for large-scale felling of trees worth Rs 4 crore in Parsa region of Warangal district and hosted a lavish dinner in Hotel Viceroy to celebrate the birthday of Das on December 17, 2004 and the expenditure of Rs 70,000 for the said dinner was incurred as shown as if it was hosted for a visiting World Bank team.

The third allegation was that the officials received kickbacks in the purchase of 50 digital cameras through AP Technological Services. After the audit pointed that an inferior mode was purchased than the one ordered, a recovery of Rs 60,000 was shown to have been effected and the file was closed.

As far as the allegation of not taking action in felling the trees was concerned, CCF (Vigilance) and CF (Vigilance) took up field visits and gave their report to Das and suggested calling for explanation from the field officers.

According to V&E officials, Das reportedly differed with the views of CCF and CF (Vigilance) and did not take any action on the report.

With regard to the dinner hosted, the V&E officials found that a review meeting-cum-workshop on AP Community Forest Management (APFCM) was organised on Dec 17 & 18.

Incidentally, the birthday of Das fell on Dec 17 for which a party was hosted at Hotel Viceroy in Hyderabad. The expenditure was Rs 521 per head, which was quite high and the guests included the family members of the officers.

‘‘When the birthday was celebrated, there was no World Bank team present in Hyderabad on that particular day. Hence booking an expenditure in the name of World Bank is totally misuse of Government funds and it is a serious misconduct indulged by the staff and PCCF.’’

Though the charge that commissions were taken in the purchase of digital cameras could not be substantiated, the conditions of the tenders were changed after receiving bids, which looked motivated, the officials said.