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TDO just a tip of the corrupted AMC iceberg Monday, March 5, 2001

AHMEDABAD: Six town development office staff suspended, ACB to investigate into the background of 39 TDO staffers, transfers and changes in TDO and showcause to 12 employees of the TDO.

These are the actions initiated by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation in the aftermath of the Republic Day quake. Rampant malpractices, links with builders and a number of other ills have led the AMC to initiate an unprecedented clean up drive that would have one opinion that its town development officers were the only black sheep in an otherwise clean set-up.

But, think again as investigations reveal the links of certain other departments which have been working in close association with the TDO. Consider estate and vigilance departments for starters and throw in some officials of the legal services wing too and even then you have got only a few pieces left in the jigsaw puzzle pointing towards a large picture. A picture that has some senior officials of AMC looking the other way, while certain other junior staff made hay.

Consider these examples:

* In a complete reversal of roles a senior official of the vigilance department of AMC was caught blackmailing certain TDO staff. This senior official had knowledge of the happenings (as did many others in the vigilance department) in TDO and was using it to his advantage to keep it "off the record."

* Names of officials in AMC's estate department and also of TDO figure as consultants in pamphlets circulated by builders. Investigations of TOI have revealed that in most cases AMC employees had used names of their wives or adopted fictitious identities for helping out builder-friends. However, the telephone numbers printed on the pamphlets lead back to staffers of the AMC.

* In yet another instance, sleuths conducting independent enquiry into the builder-AMC staff nexus spied on a staff of the estate department owning a thriving consultancy firm with clientele like top builders and promoters alike. The employee (who is said to have political clout) was apparently providing insights on how to expedite the passing of building plans and on ways to "utilise" the existing rules and regulation to their advantage.

According to sources in the AMC, the vigilance department which went through some reshuffling (four of its officials were replaced by staff of the engineering department recently) has also got its quota of rotten apples. "It is surprising that in all these years only a few of the thousands of complaints that were lodged with the vigilance department were allowed to filter through to the correct channels. A majority of the prospective cases for investigations were relegated to dusty stacks of files," said a senior AMC official.

The source further added that this practice had led to a huge number of pending cases which were attempted to be cleared at a go by a certain official (who has ever since been transferred to a different department). But files pertaining to cases dating back to early 1990s and beyond were difficult to investigate with little or no proof of alleged malpractices against the accused officials.

As per procedure, after completion of investigations, the vigilance department submits a report to the authorities of AMC and then the files are transferred to the department for industrial relations. However, TOI investigations have revealed that on an average only about 15 to 20 files pertaining to complaints of malpractices were forwarded to the IR department while hundreds of others went a begging for reasons best known to the officials concerned. Officials reveal, "certain cases with the vigilance department are against the investigators themselves."

However, municipal commissioner K Kailashnathan clarifies that the rot mainly stemmed from the TDO and certain staff of the TDO who had been shifted to the vigilance. In order to check the rampant malpractices, the AMC has begun shifting in staff of the engineering department into both vigilance and town development office.

 

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