Congress leader alleges Odisha district collector took bribe to award tender

Congress leader Majhi demanded that the Malkangiri district collector should be suspended, the tender should be quashed and the tendering process be probed.

A senior Odisha Congress leader has alleged several irregularities in the tender process to award seven stone quarries for mining in Malkangiri district and accused the district collector of taking a bribe of ₹1 crore for awarding the rights to a favoured bidder. He has sought the officer’s suspension and a probe into the matter. The collector has however rejected the allegations.

Malkangiri collector has rubbished the allegations levelled by the Congress leader and claimed that the tendering process was above board.

Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee working president Pradeep Majhi has alleged that the district collector, Yeddula Vijay, kept and manipulated tender applications at his home against the rules to help a businessman. He also claimed that the collector also erred in inviting the tenders for stone quarries at his office by bypassing the tehsildar, who was the competent authorities to deal with it. He also alleged that the district treasury confirmed that the collector didn’t deposit the tenders on time on March 20 as was claimed in an RTI reply by his office.

“However, a second RTI filed with [the] district treasury said the sealed tender boxes were kept in the district treasury on March 23 at about 1.40 PM. We suspect that the tender boxes were taken to the residence of the district collector and kept there between March 20 and 23, when he opened the sealed boxes and manipulated the tender papers in favour of the businessman, enabling him to win all 7 stone quarries,” alleged Majhi.

Majhi alleged that Venugopal was given ₹1 crore, while the minimum guaranteed quantity (MGQ) of the allocated seven stone mines was worth ₹2.38 crore.

“The collector took ₹1 crore as bribe and a luxury SUV worth ₹19 lakh to allocate the stone quarries. That vehicle is being used as his official vehicle without a valid contract carriage permit. The finance department has issued clear instruction that district collectors can hire SUVs only with valid contract carriage permits. But the district collector of Malkangiri is using a vehicle which does not have a valid contract carriage permit. This is a clear violation of govt guidelines,” he alleged.

Majhi demanded that the district collector be suspended, the tender was quashed and the process be probed.

However, Malkangiri collector has rubbished the allegations levelled by the Congress leader and claimed that the tendering process was above board. “The tender has been done as per the procedure. I took the tender boxes home because of security concerns at the office. I hired a vehicle after my car broke down,” he said.