The announcement by Water Resources Minister Sunil Tatkare came a little over a fortnight after a government 'Whitepaper' virtually gave a clean chit to senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar, paving the way for his return as Deputy Chief Minister earlier this month.
"The SIT probe will be headed by Madhav Chitaley, an irrigation expert, and the terms and references of the probe would be finalised by December 31," Tatkare told the House.
A determined Opposition had blocked the proceedings of the legislature seeking an inquiry by SIT into a multi-crore scam in various irrigation projects, particularly in the drought-prone Vidarbha region.
Leader of Opposition Eknath Khadse, while welcoming the SIT probe, demanded that the SIT's terms and references be made public and that officers allegedly facing corruption charges be kept out of the probe team.
MNS group leader Bala Nandgaokar and PWP's Ganpatrao Deshmukh also welcomed the probe and demanded its conclusion within a time frame.
Khadse said since PILs were pending before the High Court over the alleged scam, the government should inform it about the proposed SIT inquiry and seek court's guidelines on how to go about it.
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Tatkare informed the House that the inquiry will not pose any hurdle in completion of pending projects.
A week after the 'whitepaper' virtually gave a clean chit to Ajit Pawar, nephew of NCP chief and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, the former was sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister on December 7. More