JK officials booked for illegal purchase of Rs 50 lakh items

The State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) today booked several government officials for their alleged involvement in purchase of items worth several lakhs of rupees without inviting tenders in Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir.
A case has been registered against officials and officers of Social Welfare Office for purchase of non-nutritional items and medicines on their own for an amount of Rs 56,08,777 without inviting tenders and without their competence which is in violation of government orders, a SVO Officer said.
A case was registered for the aforesaid acts of omissions and commissions on the part of Vipan Kumari, Programme officer, ICDS Project Samba and CDPOs- Parvesh Sharma, Bharti Sharma, Seema Bharti and Babu Ram, Members of Purchase Committee & others, the officer added.

A probe was conducted by the Vigilance Organisation, Jammu into the allegations of irregularities for purchase of nutritional and non-nutritional items in the Integrated Child development Scheme (ICDS) Project Samba, he said.
During the probe, it was found that District Social Welfare Officer of Samba (as Nodal Officer ICDS Project Samba) has flouted four tenders for purchase of nutritional items for ICDS project before the creation of separate ICDS Mission and 5th tender was flouted by the Programme officer, ICDS Samba, he said.
It was also found that all the CDPOs of ICDS Project Samba in connivance with the District Programme officer, ICDS Samba had made such purchases in violations of all rules and norms, he said, adding, the matter is being investigated.

The District Purchase Committee Constituted by the government consisting of District Development Commissioner (Chairman), Chief Medical officer (Member), Assistant Director (Member) and Programme officer/Nodal officer (Member Secy) have approved the rates for purchase of different nutritional items for ICDS Project Samba for the year 2014-15.