An application demanding court monitored Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in the Palamuru Ranga Reddy Lift Irrigation Project (PRRLIP) was filed in the Supreme Court in April 2024. The petitioner reminded the SC that already petitions are pending against MEIL in the Court.
In 2016, the first petition against MEIL was filed in the Andhra Pradesh High Court (before the bifurcation) by the petitioner Nagam Janardan Reddy, who is a former Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and a Minister in the Government of State of Andhra Pradesh (before bifurcation) and a former Chairman of Public Accounts Committee.
In this petition, Nagam revealed various malpractices in the tenders awarded to MEIL in the PRRLIP in the State of Andhra Pradesh.
The petitioner moved to the Supreme Court in 2019 after the High Court dismissed his plea. The matter has been pending in the SC since then.
A BRIEF BACKGROUND OF PRRLIP CASE
The PRRLIP project can be divided into 4 packages (Packages 1,5,8 and 16). The estimated cost of the total 4 packages of the project was Rs 5960.79 crore in December 2015 as per the Engineering Staff College of India (ESCI).
In January 2016, the estimates for the four packages were revised to Rs 8386.86 crore by the advisor of the project. The new estimate showed a whopping increase in the cost by Rs 2426.07 crores.
To reveal alleged embezzlement by MEIL, first, the petitioner mentioned the break up cost of one of the packages, i.e, package no.5. The petition mentioned that the percentage of cost of civil works is 35% of the total Estimated Cost Value (ECV). While the percentage of cost of E&M equipment was 65% of total ECV and only Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) had the capacity to provide this service.
But the breakup of package 5 shows that 80% of the ECV was to be received by MEIL and only 20% went to BHEL. Although, the tender document clearly showed that BHEL’s scope of work was much more than MEIL.
Second, the petitioner also mentioned that ESCI estimated the unit rate for pumps and motors for package 5 at Rs 60 crore and Rs 58 crore but it was “fraudulently and unreasonably escalated to Rs 92 crore and Rs 87 crore”. The petitioner emphasised that MEIL and BHEL colluded to loot public money by increasing the cost of the project.
The petitioner had demanded a Court monitored CBI investigation into the alleged irregularities and illegalities in the process the cost of the PRRLIP project was increased.
PRRLIP is one of the early projects that shows the modus operandi adopted by MEIL to exercise corrupt practices. This project shows how MEIL allegedly connived with the bureaucrats to embezzle money by increasing the cost of the projects after getting the contract from the government.
The matter is still pending in the Supreme Court.