The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has registered an FIR against six people, including engineers and a contractor, over alleged financial and procedural irregularities in the construction of a cowshed at Dabhoura in Madhya Pradesh’s Rewa district, where Rs 20.22 lakh was paid despite essential facilities being missing.
The project, sanctioned under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), was intended to shelter destitute and stray cattle. It was approved at an estimated cost of Rs 37.85 lakh and included a cowshed, calf shed, fodder store, sick-cattle shed, borewell, 6,000-litre water tank, boundary wall and land levelling.
According to the EOW, physical verification found only an 80-by-25-foot partly constructed boundary wall and an incomplete building that was unsuitable for use. The agency said no cattle sheds, borewell or water tank had been constructed at the site.
The investigation has also raised questions about the tendering process. EOW officials said personnel from the Rural Engineering Services division allegedly bypassed the open tender process to favour a supplier, Deendayal Kushwaha of Chhatarpur. Two allegedly forged short-tender documents for the same work were prepared with dates of December 3 and December 31, 2020, the agency said.
According to the investigation, neither the tender document fee nor the earnest money deposit was paid. Quotations were sought for 28 materials, but the supplier submitted an incomplete rate list covering only nine items. Despite this, officials allegedly prepared a comparative statement declaring the firm the lowest bidder and issued the work order.
The alleged irregularities extended to project billing. The EOW said bills totalling Rs 27.38 lakh were uploaded on the MGNREGA portal, of which Rs 20.22 lakh was paid. The agency’s physical inspection, however, found that the site lacked the facilities for which the project had been sanctioned.
Those booked include former executive engineers Rajendra Singh Dhurve, D S Armo and Himanshu Tiwari; former sub-divisional officer Jagdish Singh Rajput; former assistant grade-III employee Laxman Prasad Shukla; and supplier Deendayal Kushwaha. The FIR invokes provisions relating to criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy, along with sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The case places the focus on how rural public works are tendered, recorded and physically verified before payments are released. Further investigation by the EOW is underway.
