In what could be Suresh Kalmadi effect, the Sports Ministry has refused to release funds to foreign firms worth Rs 100 crore till the investigating agencies gives clearance.
In what could be Suresh Kalmadi effect, the Sports Ministry has refused to release funds to foreign firms worth Rs 100 crore till the investigating agencies gives clearance.
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Missions of eight countries in a joint letter to Sports Minister Ajay Maken had sought immediate release of pending funds over Rs 100 crore saying they have clearance from all regulatory bodies in India.
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The letter was written by eight foreign missions including Britain, France, Germany andd Italy on behalf of companies, who payments were held back after the Commonwealth Games scam surfaced.
Acting on the letter, the Sports Minister Ajay Maken sought opinion of the law ministry whether the money can be released to them or not. The minister had also wanted to which of these contracts were being investigated.
The Law ministry has said that the money should not be released until and unless the investigating agencies clear the payments. Many of the cases, in which the payment has been stopped, are being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
One such case is related to Swiss Timing Machines in which former president of CWG Organising Committee Suresh Kalmadi has been arrested. “There is no way payment to company in this case can be made,” an official said.
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Similarly, the investigating agencies have advised the sports ministry not to release payments in other cases being investigated by them. Ministry officials said they have made it clear that no payment will be released till investigations get over.
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Similarly, the investigating agencies have advised the sports ministry not to release payments in other cases being investigated by them. Ministry officials said they have made it clear that no payment will be released till investigations get over.
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The letter had said that several of these companies have still not received clearances from the RBI, Central Board of Excise and Customs to release shipping containers.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
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