The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Major bogus bills racket unearthed

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Monday, Mar 31, 2008
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Major bogus bills racket unearthed

G. Anand

Works executed under MLA, MP funds

Isaac’s order to verify genuineness of the bills
Contractors printed the bogus bills themselves

Thiruvananthapuram: The Finance Inspection Wing (FIW) has found that certain contractors who had executed development works in the State using the MLA Special Development Fund (MLA-SDF) and the MP Local Area Development (MPLAD) Scheme had fraudulently claimed large amounts of money from the government by faking the purchase of construction material using bogus bills of sale.

On the basis of its report, Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac ordered the Intelligence Wing of the Commercial Taxes Department to verify at random the genuineness of the sale bills submitted by the contractors who had executed such works in the State in the past five years.

The Minister asked Taxes Department Secretary P. Mariapandian to conduct the verification with the help of District Collectors and Public Works Department officials.

Communicating the Minister’s order to Mr. Mariapandian, Finance (Expenditure) Department Secretary Ashwini Kumar Rai said in his official note that “it is suspected that a large number of such bogus bills were encashed by the contractors, which has wider ramifications throughout the State.”

The watchdog agency had detected the apparently widespread fraud while verifying the genuineness of certain bills submitted by two government contractors in Kozhikode who executed MLA-SDF/MPLAD-aided developmental works.

Subsequently, the Kozhikode District Collector ordered that all payments due to the contractors be kept in abeyance and no civil works be awarded to them till further orders. The police also registered a case of forgery and cheating against the contractors.

A Finance Department investigator said a set of government contractors, for claiming their work bills, had submitted bills of sale which were not issued by the construction material dealers mentioned in the bill. He said most of the suspect contractors had printed the bogus bills themselves.

The government is also assessing its revenue loss in terms of Value Added Tax (VAT) caused by the bogus purchase bill racket.

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