'No plans to disband BBMP vigilance cell'

The Technical Vigilance Cell under Commissioner (TVCC), which earlier exposed a series of financial irregularities in the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), will not be disbanded, Palike Commissioner M Lakshminarayana has promised.

Two key posts in the TVCC — one of chief engineer and another of superintending engineer — are lying vacant. Strong rumours did the rounds at the BBMP that the TVCC will either be disbanded or made so weak as to exist only on paper. The hearsay was lent further credence when the Superintending Engineer, S Prabhakar, was shifted out of TVCC and posted to the BBMP’s Quality Control Division.

The Palike’s vigilance cell had suffered a blow on May 31 when its Chief Engineer, N Devaraj, took voluntary retirement, unable to face the ire of corporators who had “abused and humiliated” him for “exposing” financial irregularities in the civic body.
Devaraj and Prabhakar were always the soft targets as they had exposed many a scam.
Their investigative reports resulted in holding back of payment of hundreds of crores of rupees. In a recent case, bogus works worth Rs 532 crore were cancelled and payments were frozen.

Lakshminarayana, however, sought to allay the fears about the TVCC and said that the Palike did not have any plan to disband it. He said that after becoming the BBMP Commissioner, he had not transferred any official. He also did not know why Prabhakar was transferred to the quality control division, he claimed.

An extraordinary day at BBMP

May 31, 2013 will go down as a highly eventful day at the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). For, several of its officers either retired, took voluntary retirement or went on long leave on the day.

While Commissioner Siddaiah, Engineer-in-Chief B T Ramesh, Chief Health Officer Dr Devaki Umesh and Additional Commissioner K Chandrashekhar retired, the TVCC Chief Engineer N Devaraj, Bommanahalli Zonal Chief Engineer A M Naik and Superintending Engineer (Town Planning) M Ramesh took voluntary retirement.

The same day, Special Commissioner K R Niranjan went on long leave and rumours are rife that he has chosen not to come back to the BBMP which he served for three years.