The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case on a complaint from BSNL, Assam Circle, Guwahati.
“The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case on a complaint from BSNL, Assam Circle, Guwahati against 21 officials of BSNL including then General Manager, then Dy.GM, then AGM, then Chief Accounts Officer, etc. of BSNL, Jorhat, Sibsagar, Guwahati and others including Private persons,” the press release said.
CBI in its official statement said that it was alleged that the public servants entered into a conspiracy with the Contractor and others and in pursuance thereof, cheated BSNL.
It was further alleged that the Contractor was given a work order for laying the National Optical Fibre Network Cable through an open trenching method of Rs 90,000/- per km.
“It was also alleged that later on, the contractor made different pleas including no right of way from the owner of private land, etc., to convert the open trenching method to Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) method (@ Rs.2,30,000/- per km ) in spite of the provision of the right of way, easement clause in the contract, thereby violated tender clause and caused loss of Rs.22 crore(approx) to the BSNL,” an official statement said.
CBI said that searches were conducted today at 25 locations including offices and residential premises of the accused in the States of Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha and Haryana etc which has led to the recovery of incriminating articles.
Further investigation is underway in this matter.