KATHMANDU, AUGUST 31
The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority has filed a chargesheet against 10 persons, including a former mayor of Bhimdatta Municipality, at the Special Court for their involvement in revenue leakage worth millions of rupees in collusion with contractors in relation to extraction of river products.
Those indicted by the anti-graft body are former mayor of the municipality Surendra Bahadur Bista, former CAO Hari Datta Joshi, former chair of Ward No 7 Himal Bahadur Chand, engineer Himalaya Singh Aier, account officers Govinda Upadhyay and Bikram Bhandari, non-gazetted first class officer Narendra Dev Bhatta, and operators of Bhawani Construction Pvt Ltd Ishwori Prasad Bhatta, Keshav Raj Bhatta and Khageshwor Bhatta.
The CIAA said former mayor Bista and former CAO Joshi had reached an agreement with the contractor company on behalf of the municipality by fixing contract price to grant tax exemption against the prevailing law and the provisions mentioned in the 'Standard on Extraction, Sale and Management of Stones, Pebbles and Sand' in the fiscal 2019- 20. This had resulted in revenue loss of around Rs 13.4 million to the government.
The standard aims to ensure easy supply of river and mine-based products for infrastructure development activities and to discourage excessive and indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources.
Contrary to the legal provision, the rural municipality chairperson, CAO and contractors had over-exploited the river products to serve their vested interest through corruption, in addition to granting tax exemption to the contractor.
As per the CIAA, the Initial Environment Examination report of the contract states that river products may be extracted using heavy equipment such as excavator under the oversight of the technical committee formed by the local level.
But they were found to have used heavy equipment arbitrarily without seeking the presence of the technical committee. They had also extracted and collected river products without using labour-based technology to provide employment opportunities to the locals. In addition, the indiscriminate extraction of river products had affected the natural environment.
A nine-member district monitoring committee led by the chief of District Coordination Committee also found the contractors had flouted legal provisions.
In the chargesheet filed at the court, the CIAA has sought the recovery of Rs 13.4 million in revenue leakage from all the defendants, including former mayor and CAO each, in addition to a fine equivalent thereto under the Prevention of the Corruption Act, 2002.
A version of this article appears in the print on September 1, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
