KMC street light probe hits hurdle

KANPUR: A few corporators, who are members of the probe panel constituted by Kanpur Municipal Corporation to look into the purchase of street lights have refused to sign the report.
Streetlight purchases are made through tenders. The purchase was rocked by allegations of substandard quality and inflated prices. According to reports in 2013, municipal commissioner had asked corporation officials to float tenders for the supply of electronic street lights.
Several companies filed the bids. However, a company offered to supply the products directly without any intermediary.
KMC agreed to buy the products from the company at almost half the price and placed an order.
However, during verification of the first consignment officials detected that the products supplied did not comply with the purchase order. A probe was ordered after chief engineer, road light, raised an objection. Municipal commissioner DK Singh also ordered that samples be sent to a private lab for verification. A committee, comprising engineers Ramesh Kardam and Ram Nageena Tripathi and two corporators Ashok Tiwari and Mahendra Singh alias Pappu, was constituted to probe into the matter.
In the absence of corporator Ashok Tiwari, Mahendra Pratap Singh was sent to Gurgaon lab where he handed over the sample to gatekeeper around 10 pm and returned.
The wrong dates of receiving samples mentioned in the report created doubts over its veracity. The corporators objected to the discrepancy and refused to put their signature on it alleging manipulation. Corporator Tripathi told TOI: "As the report was of dubious nature, there was no reason to put his sign on it."