Former UP police officer alleges ₹369 crore scam in state’s information department, demands probe

Social activist and former police officer Amitabh Thakur has alleged that Uttar Pradesh’s Information and Public Relations Department has been involved in a scam worth ₹369 crores and demanded a probe into the same.

 

Thakur, who also heads a political party called the Azad Adhikar Sena, has written to the state’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, drawing attention to the same.

 

In his letter, he said that he had received information about 19 tenders for printing in the Information and Public Relations Department that were issued between the years 2020 and 2024. Prima facie, there appear to be huge irregularities in these.

 

Thakur said he uncovered discrepancies carried out in two methods. Firstly, in all these tenders, there are allegations that the department hiked up the estimated rate by about 40-70 per cent from the actual rate. Thus, the estimated rate of these 19 tenders was fixed at ₹872.34 crore, while the actual rate of the work in question was only ₹485.14 crore. These tenders were given to the lowest bidder for ₹854.28 crores, causing a loss of ₹369 crores to the government.

 

Apart from this, in these 19 tenders, the technical bids of only four were found to be correct repeatedly in all the tenders. The allegation is that bids of other firms were wrongfully rejected. The complainant has said that these four firms are dummies of another firm at the primary level.

 

Other facts also point to wrongdoing. Ether Press was registered on June 8, 2021, and got a tender of ₹16.63 crore on June 18 2021, just 10 days after its registration, and ₹27.63 crore on April 1, 2022, 10 months later. As per the government’s e-tendering GEM protocols, a minimum of one year of experience and three years of audit reports are mandatory for government orders.

 

Similarly, as per records, in two cases, the bid was opened before the due date by announcing it on the same day and in three cases, the bid was opened before the due date without any notice.

 

Another tender of ₹188 crore was given to three firms which had no expertise in the required work.

 

Thakur has demanded an immediate high-level inquiry from the Chief Minister himself into the allegations of these serious irregularities in a department that comes under him.

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