₹75 crore for road work never done: Dhananjay Munde under lens again

Suresh Dhas alleged that government money meant for road construction was released when Munde was guardian minister of Beed

MUMBAI: State food and civil supplies minister Dhananjay Munde, under intense pressure to resign from the state cabinet for his close ties with the alleged mastermind of the Beed sarpanch’s murder, is under the lens once again.

Mumbai, India - August 17, 2022: MLA Dhananjay Munde (C) enters Vidhan Bhavan during the first day of the monsoon session of Maharashtra Legislature Assembly in Mumbai, India, on Wednesday, August 17, 2022. (Photo by Satish Bate/ Hindustan Times) (Satish Bate/HT PHOTO)

Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Suresh Dhas, who has been leading the charge against Munde in connection with the sarpanch murder case, on Wednesday alleged that government money meant for road construction worth around ₹75 crore was released when Munde was guardian minister of Beed – even though none of the work was done.

Dhas, MLA from Ashti in Beed district, said the funds were meant for road work in Parli and Ambejogai tehsils in Beed district when the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was in power in the state, and the Covid-19 pandemic was at its peak.

Addressing the media in Beed, Dhas presented documents relating to the release of government funds for roads in the two tehsils. Munde, who was social justice minister in the MVA government from November 2019 to June 2022, was also guardian minister of Beed district. The funds were allocated by the District Planning and Development Committee (DPDC) and road development programme of the state government when Munde was guardian minister, Dhas said. The guardian minister of a district can use his veto to divert funds to particular tehsils.

Dhas said ₹37.70 crore was released by the DPDC on five occasions, for five different works in Parli and Ambejogai tehsils. The bills were cleared on December 30, 2021 for ₹2.31 crore; March 18, 2022 for ₹10.98 crore; March 25, 2022 for ₹6.59 crore; March 26, 2022 for ₹16.48 crore; and March 31, 2022 for ₹1.34 crore. “The bills were cleared by the public works department even though not a penny’s worth of work was undertaken. Sanjay Munde, who was deputy engineer then, was given charge as executive engineer to clear the bills on June 2022,” he alleged.

As part of the modus operandi, he claimed the funds were transferred to the district council treasury from the state government’s PWD so that they would not lapse at the end of the financial year. “Another tranche of ₹16.20 crore was released by the PWD in Ambejogai for 16 works. Another bunch of works worth ₹21.20 crore was cleared under the hybrid annuity model of road construction. The sum was released for ongoing projects with the provision of the additional allocation. The local office of the PWD realised that the sum was allocated twice for the same work but it was not recovered from the contractor,” he said.

Dhas alleged that the contracts and funds were released to the contractor at the behest of Munde, then guardian minister. He said administrative approvals for some of the road projects were withdrawn by the then district collector, in spite of which the funds were not withheld by the PWD.

Dhas has timed his allegations to coincide with the eve of deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s tour of Beed on Thursday. As guardian minister of Beed, Pawar will convene a meeting of the DPDC during his one-day trip.

“I expect guardian minister Ajit Pawar, who is also the state’s finance and planning minister, to take cognisance of the usurpation of government money. I have not seen a case where such a large sum, meant for roads, has been released without the work of a single penny being done. I am releasing these documents to the media so that the people in Parli and Ambejogai can see where the money meant for their roads has gone,” he said.