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| Raj Bhawan silent over multi-crore scam in SKUAST Jammu! | | Hi-tech equipment bought for Rs. 643 lacs put to rust, codal requirements breached | | Syed Junaid Hashmi
JAMMU, Dec 12: Central Purchase Committee (CPC) of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Science and Technology (SKUAST) bought equipment, most of which has rusted, worth Rs. 653 lacs in 'urgency and complete breach of codal formalities'.
Export quality equipment was purchased without ascertaining whether the departments for which they were meant actually needed them or not. The then Chairman of the Purchase committee Dr. A.K.Srivastava, whose sanction for prosecution has been denied by the present VC Dr. B.Mishra, being a scientist knew better than anyone else whether these costly equipments were required or not yet he assented to the proposal of purchasing these equipments without inviting tenders.
Srivastava, according to documentary evidence, being indenter placed the orders, which were on scrutiny described as 'unfruitful expenditure' by special audit team constituted by the state government. Besides, 5 of the 11 equipments, costing more than Rs. 2.45 crore purchased by the university on the indent of Dr. A.K.Srivastava, who was then DRI-cum-Dean PGS, have rusted since the university failed to put them to use.
Of those, who have been put to use, it took SKUAST management around two year to know about installation as well as functioning of Flow Cyclometry, a machine costing more than Rs. 38 Lakh. Besides, another machine HPCL costing Rs. 23.96 lakh has been put to partial use. Electronic Scanning Microscope bought from Foxvision Instruments Hitachi Scanning E.M.S-3000H costing Rs. 1 crore 30 lakh is still packed. The entire instrument is yet to be unpacked since none knows how to operate it.
Other costly machines were purchased by the university without inviting tenders and in most cases on single tender basis. These machines have been put to use but after getting people trained for using them. Audit report affirms that these purchases have been made with the formal approval of both Chairman of Purchase committee as well as the then Vice-chancellor of SKUAST Dr. Nagender Sharma.
It maintains that these purchases were made without ascertaining competitive, reasonable and lowest rates. Audit has termed the issue as 'serious' and said that it requires justification as to why the said equipments were not made functional after making huge investments for their purchase. The team recommended that Raj Bhawan or the SKUAST administration must constitute a committee of experts to see whether the purchase has been made in accordance to the requirements or not.
The 31 page audit report has obliquely pointed towards the involvement of the head of purchase committee alongwith other accused but present VC of SKUAST for the reasons best known to him denied sanction for prosecution of Dr. A.K.Srivastava, who is presently, Director National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) Karnal.
Besides, audit found out that university had made petty purchases worth Rs. 8.03 lakh and also local purchases worth Rs. 15.91 lacs without observing codal formalities and ascertaining genuine and reasonable rates. University had made an irregular payment of Rs. 1.15 lakh on account of cost of one RICOI Aficio MP 2000 LC digital copier alongwith printer and scanner worth Rs. 59 thousand.
Audit team while reviewing the stationary records found out that on the requisition of Dr. A.K.Srivastava, SKUAST purchased answer sheets of different dimensions from Bytes and Bytes, 95-B Nehru Park colony, Bareilly in excess of the actual requirement at the cost of Rs. 7.93 lakh. This again was done without inviting tenders and if the insiders are to be believed, locals working in the University and who have also been indicted by SVO knew nothing about the credentials of this supplier.
Audit report has also taken up the issue of unfruitful expenditure of Rs. 2.89 crore on the installation/purchase of e-learning studio. Insiders affirm that equipment in the high-tech studio is non-functional while adding that the new VC instead of making the studio functional has locked it up. Audit team has called for getting these equipments checked by a technical committee to ascertain originality and other realities.
It has concluded the audit of the purchases by referring to the defective purchase of smart cards worth Rs. 15.02 lacs. Raj Bhawan was repeatedly requested for its comments over the scam but it refused without assigning any reasons for the same. On the other side, Vice-Chancellor of SKUAST Dr. B.Mishra is tightlipped over the entire issue. His aide did react but only to say that instead of focusing on past, Early Times should write about the good work being done by the University. |
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