JOIN USThe recommendations of the committee headed by MLA M K Pattanshetty came in connection with loss caused by the officers to the Karnataka Forest Development Corporation Ltd (KFDCL) and Marketing Consultants and Agencies Limited (MCAL).
Heading the list of officers is Vivek Kulkarni, former IAS, who was the Managing Director of MCAL. He is currently Chairman and CEO of Brickworks India, a knowledge process outsourcing company and founder of Brickwork Ratings - the fifth credit rating agency of India. The committee recommended “strict action” against Kulkarni and S B Kolhar, then Secretary, MCAL.
Pattanashetty, in a press conference in Bangalore on Tuesday, said that due to wrong decisions of IFS officers in planting agave saplings in 1993-94 resulted in a loss of Rs 1.14 crore to the company. The loss was due to poor maintenance of the saplings. This was noticed by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report in 2003.
The officers responsible are N V Ramachandra Shetty, M K Appaiah, B R Bhaskar, A S Kumar, B S Adappa and M L Ramaprakash.
The committee said the MCAL suffered a loss of Rs 56.70 lakh during 2002-03 and 2003-04 by offering services to private event organising company Cyber Expo, which organised IT.com, an annual event of the IT department. The company had offered services to Cyber Expo on oral direction from the then IT secretary. But the company did not get payment for its services.
The committee also recommended that the officers who delayed initiating action against erring officers should also be punished.