BeyondHeadlines Staff Reporter
New Delhi: With the chorus increasingly growing against her over the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on the irregularities in the Commonwealth Games related projects, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today convened a meeting of her Cabinet to discuss the issue.
The meeting, seen as a fire fighting exercise, was also attended by the Chief Secretary Praveen K Tripathi. She had yesterday asserted that her govt has not done “nothing wrong”.
“We have not done anything wrong. Everything was done keeping in mind the national interest and prestige. We were entrusted with certain responsibilities and we delivered them,” she said.
The CAG in its report on the Commonwealth Games (CWG) – which was leaked to the media -had slammed her government for irregularities in awarding of CWG projects.
The CAG is believed to have identified how a contracting firm M/s Space Age Switchgear bidding for street lighting — disqualified by the PWD — was later re-inducted in the vendors’ list for street-lighting “irregularly” at the instructions of the Delhi Chief Minister.
The CAG also observed several instances of wasteful expenditure by the Delhi government and civic agencies amounting to the tune of over Rs 100 crores over street-scaping and an excess expenditure of Rs 31.07 crore on street lighting by MCD, NDMC and PWD.
The Chief Minister has already asserted that anybody found guilty of any wrongdoing will not be spared.
Yesterday, Chief Secretary has also defended the Sheila government said that it did not favour any particular firm and all “due procedures” were followed in awarding contracts. “The Chief Minister never favoured any company to get contract. All due procedures were followed in awarding the contracts,” Tripathi said.
“No irregularities were committed in purchasing of potted plants”, he added. However, he did not rule out any wrongdoings by the company Space Age, which got part of the contract for installation of streetlights across the city. “At no stage the Chief Minister gave approval for Space Age. Advisory board under the CM rejected the Space Age,” he said.
“Space Age was considered for the contract following a directive from the Delhi High Court,” Tripathi added.
The CAG’s indictment of Delhi Chief Minister came after it blamed the PMO for giving a long rope to IOA chief and CWG Organising Committee (OC) chief Suresh Kalmadi in spending crores of taxpayer’s money in the names of preparations for the sporting event. The explosive CAG report is yet to be tabled in Parliament.
