Pallavaram ex-civic chief, engineer gobble school toilet cleaning fund

CHENNAI: Former Pallavaram municipal Commissioner and municipal engineer allegedly gobbled up funds meant for cleaning school toilets by fudging records with the connivance of private firms eight years ago, DVAC has found.

Sivakumar, now the Commissioner of Erode Corporation, and Karuppaiah Raja, now the regional executive engineer, Chengalpattu, also indulged in malpractice in mosquito control work and even in the purchase of medicine to control elephantiasis.

As per Local Fund Audit report, the tender was awarded to Deepthi Enterprises for cleaning 184 toilets in 11 schools under Pallavaram Municipality. But out of them, only 47 toilets were used by the staff and teachers who were engaged in examination paper valuation work during vocational holidays in 2015.

The firm was then paid the full amount of Rs 8.55 lakh, when it was supposed to be paid only Rs 1.7 lakh for cleaning 47 toilets.

In 2016, Sivakumar allegedly violated the tender norms and without getting sanction from higher authority, paid Rs 1.1 crore to the same firm for cleaning the toilets of 11 schools for one year.

Municipal engineer Karuppaiah Raja on his part had not obtained technical sanction from the Chief Engineer, Municipal Administration, Chennai, the DVAC said. In 2015-16, Sivakumar also flouted tender rules to award the contract to Reylon Facility Services to engage domestic breeding checkers for one year at an estimated expense of Rs 1.14 crore. It is also alleged that there was malpractice in the purchase of elephantiasis medicine supplied by Pyrethrum India to Pallavaram municipality.