Haripad Medical College case-Vigilance to probe bribery allegations

Haripad: The Vigilance Department will be registering an alleged bribery allegations case about the consultancy deal of the proposed Haripad Medical College.The Chief Engineer,Buildings is said to be the first prime accused in the First information Report to be submitted in the Vigilance Court at Kottayam, on Saturday.

The plan process for the Haripad Medical College,which was initiated during the UDF government’s tenure, was quashed when the LDF took over. The contract given to a consultancy firm to design the college was cancelled on the basis of corruption charges in the awarding of the contract.The LDF government went a step further by ordering a vigilance probe into the matter.

The vigilance team discovered that the contract had been given without following the requisite stipulations, in its initial probing.

The Haripad Medical College proposal was initiated under the supervision of a Ramesh Chennithala, under the UDF government on January 1, 2015.

Under the flouting of stipulation norms allegation, it was discovered that those who bid larger sums were granted the contract, as against those who asked for lesser sums. It is also alleged that the rule that the consultancy contract is not be to given to one asking for an amount greater than 1.90 %, of the project cost, was also violated; resulting in the government incurring a loss of Rs. 7.70 Crore.

The vigilance is proceeding by naming the accused contract procedure initiators in this case.

The body will also go into political interventions in giving away of the contract.