The Bihar government has recommended a CBI inquiry into alleged irregularities in the much publicised Rs 202 crore dhoti-saree schme for 66 lakh families living below the poverty line.
State chief secretary B P Verma yesterday left for New Delhi with the formal request letter from Chief Minister Rabri Devi, industry minister Baidyanath Pandey told reporters here yesterday.
Pandey said it had been decided to annul the contract with the Association of Cooperation and Apex Socieities for Handloom (Acash) entrusted with the supply of 124.52 lakh pieces of dhotis and equal number of sarees annually.
The minister said, preliminary inquiries initiated by the state government had revealed that Acash, an all india apex body of cooperatives, had flouted the provisions of the contract by supplying inferior quality of dhotis and sarees manufactured on powelooms.
The state government had entered into contract with Acash in March under which it was to start supply from April 20 and complete the process by October 20.
Pandey said the state government had made avilable Rs 40 crore as interest-free advance to the agency for giving bank guarantee following a request from it on the plea that it would not be able to commence supply as coopearive societies which would manufacture dhotis-sarees needed to be paid an advance.
He said preliminary inquiries revealed that the Haryana Handloom and Handicraft Corporation and Haryana Export Corporation, two bodies entrusted by Acash got the works done on powerlooms at factories in Nagpur and Kamti in violation of the contract which provided for manufacture on handlooms.
The samples obtained from seven districts had been sent for technical examination to northern indian textile researth association (gaziabad) and indian institute of handloom technology (varanashi).
The scheme was mooted in 1995 and it was initially decided that the contract would be given to the weavers cooperativce socieities of the state to help generate employment. The plan was later shelved as the indigegenous societies could hardly meet 15-20 per cent of the requirement.
Later an all India tender was invited and acash, the lowest bidder, was awarded the contract, mr pandey said.
Under the highly subsidised scheme, each person of the targetted group is to be given one pair of dhoti and saree every year with the market price of rs 73 and rs 87.50 for a paltry rs 15.
Mr pandey said acash had by august 20 supplied 22.44 lakh dhotis and 17.63 lakh sarees the purchase price of which totalled rs 31.8 crore. He, however, said the government had made a payment of rs 7.96 crore so far.
The minister said it had been decided that no no payment would be made to acash against vouchers issued after june 30 as it had failed to give performance guarantee as sought by the state government.
The governments recommendation for cbi probe follows allegations of huge bunglings by acash in the implementation of the ambitious scheme.
The leader of opposition in the state assembly, mr sushil kumar modi, had alleged that former chief minister, mr laloo prasad yadav, was instrumental in awarding the contract to acash despite objections raised by the state vigilance commissioner at a high-level official meeting chaired by chief secretary in december 1996.
