Five people booked for fraud, forgery of Rs 3 cr in Gujarat

Mehsana, Feb 8

Five people, including three engineers and two contractors of the Gujarat government have been booked allegedly for fraud and criminal conspiracy of Rs 3 crore.

The accused were booked for forging quality test certificates and signatures of Lab officers to clear and release payments of contractors employed for construction of roads.

Mehsana District Panchayat's in-charge Executive Engineer G R Chaudhary, in a complaint with the Mehsana police on Tuesday night, said, "In the year 2014-15, then executive engineer with the Mehsana district Panchayat Pradip Sanghvi, Ramesh Patel, Deputy Engineer Vishnu Prajapati in connivance with contractors Lalit Leuva and R C Patel have constructed poor quality of RCC roads in Mehsana and Ahmedabad districts and siphoned off approximately Rs 3 crore from government treasury."

The accused have been charged with not maintaining standards in construction of RCC roads, forging laboratory quality tests fake certificates and forging signatures of Lab officers to clear and release payments of contractors.

The officer in his complaint said a samratian citizen had complained to the State Vigilance Commission alleging that Laghnaj-Kherva approach road, which was constructed just four months ago, has developed cracks even before the monsoon.

These officers and agencies had constructed other roads in Ahmedabad Rural ISKCON-Ambli- Bopal road and internal roads of Ambli village, and Unjha also.

On Vigilance Commission's order, Gujarat Quality Control department was asked to probe the matter.

The department's report said the standards laid down for RCC road construction were not met, material used was of inferior quality, Gujarat Engineering Research Institute and laboratory's fake certificates were generated to pass contractors bills and payments were released.

The accused were booked on the charges of cheating, criminal breach of trust by public servant, forgery and fraud.