The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Opposition demand gets rejected

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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Opposition demand gets rejected

Special Correspondent

A House panel probe was sought into the ‘health university scam’

Bangalore: The State Government on Thursday rejected a vociferous demand by the Opposition in the Legislative Assemblyto constitute a House Committee to probe what has now come to be termed as health university scam.

Former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and former Minister H.D. Revanna produced documents to show that five Ministers of the Kumaraswamy Cabinet, including the then Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, were associated with the sanction of an advance payment of Rs. 33.37 crore to a contractor to construct the new campus of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences. They said it would be impossible for a retired government servant to probe certain charges in which five or more Ministers were responsible for a given act.

Mr. Yeddyurappa has ordered a high-level inquiry into the “illegal” advance payment of Rs. 33.37 crore to a contractor of a Hyderabad-based company for construction of Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) building at Ramanagara by the Kumaraswamy government.

The advance payment was made to the contractor even before the land was acquired for the university campus.

The Chief Minister said the construction work of the university buildings could have commenced if the land acquisition process had been completed.

As payment had been made before the land acquisition, the Government suspended two senior engineers — K. Jayaprakash, Chief Engineer, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), and B.L. Ravindra Babu, Superintendent Engineer, Communications and Buildings, Public Works Department.

The contractor had also returned the advance that he had received from the Government. An order would be issued asking a retired IAS officer to conduct the probe and submit a report to the Government.

Minister for Public Works C.M. Udasi said the contractor had been paid the advance even before the construction of the campus received the administrative and technical approvals.

Then Medical Education Secretary cleared the proposal and sent it across to the PWD which in turn floated tenders and in quick time paid the advance to the contractor.

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