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| PMO intervenes, asks Cabinet Secy to review CWG deadline Saturday, July 31, 2010 New Delhi: The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) ordered the Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrashekhar to review the status of the ongoing projects of the forthcoming Commonwealth Games to be played here in October. The PMO also asked the Cabinet Secretary to find out the reason behind delay in meeting the deadlines for all the projects. The Cabinet Secretary was to visit the CWG Organising Committee office on Saturday, a plan which was later cancelled, as per the sources. The PMO’s orders came after the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) report revealed massive irregularities in a tender issued for a Commonwealth Games project worth several crores. The CVC asked the CBI to register a corruption case against certain MCD officials. The CVC found serious discrepancies like award of works at higher rates to bidders, poor quality of construction and grant of work to ineligible agencies in different Games-related construction works being carried out by various departments in the capital. As per the assessment report prepared by CVC’s Chief Technical Examination Wing, large-scale procedural violations, including corruption, have been noticed in 16 projects. The cost of the projects has been estimated to be about Rs 2,000 crore. On the other hand, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has started a probe into international monetary transactions pertaining to certain Games project contracts awarded to a London-based firm. The ED will get in touch with the Games Organising Committee to obtain documents of the contract entered with the company, official sources said. The agency would also get in touch with its London counterpart to ascertain the registration and financial transactions of the company in UK. This has been done in the wake of the British authorities referring to the Indian High Commission a matter regarding AM Films, a London-based company, to which a huge some of money was transferred through the Royal Bank of Scotland. On the other hand, the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee denied the charges of financial irregularities. “Organising Committee Commonwealth Games 2010 Delhi would like to state that we have followed due diligence in making all payments, getting the clearances from the Executive Board and from Reserve Bank of India for incurring the expenditure in foreign currency. All remittances happened against this clearance,” OC spokesperson Lalit Bhanot said in a statement. Chairman of the Organising Committee for the Commonwealth Suresh Kalmadi also said all financial transactions were made in accordance with RBI rules. Union Sports Minister MS Gill and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit refused to comment on the issue, saying they were not aware of it. courtesy |
