While a very welcome inquiry has commenced into the irregularities and illegalities of the Police Training School, an audit must be done on the pending inquiries into several inquiries conducted by the Vigilance department through the Anti-Corruption Bureau. Much as we pursue grave irregularities in the Police Training School, in terms of scale and size, the massive scams in the Public Works Department and the GIDC need to be unravelled and uncovered by giving the same Anti- Corruption Bureau a free hand to do investigations without road blocks which have delayed investigations for years.
A case in point is the allotment of plots in the GIDC. In 2012, immediately after the assembly elections Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had announced that an FIR would be registered against officials of the GIDC, for fraudulent allotment of pots, not taking back utilised lots and more seriously transferring plots allotted and unused to relatives of the senior officer in the GIDC. While the axe fell on an officer who was the main signing authority working on the behest of the then IDC Chairman and Quepem MLA Babu Kavlekar, William Borges, the man has files full of evidence that is enough to incriminate several other officials and politicians. Now coming back to the much promised FIR, it was registered against unnamed officials of the IDC. A year later when the Superintendant of Police of the ACB Bosco George began pursuing the case, he had to write to the IDC to formally tell him who the officers were who were involved in taking decisions like allotting plots. The IDC did what was expected. Not reply. With no name to proceed against, the investigations slowed down.
Connected to this is the ACB investigation into land bought by the IDC Chairman Babu Kavlekar in Kerala, believed to have been purchased through funds allegedly made through IDC deals.
Kavlekar was questioned by the ACB over the purchase of properties worth Rs 5.54 crore in Pathanamthitta district in Ranni taluka at Kerala. The investments are in the name of Chandrababu Kavlekar, house No. 167, Bethool, PO Goa. Of the 13 properties, nine are worth Rs 26 lakh, one is worth Rs 17 lakh, another Rs 2.34 crore and two Rs 34 lakh.
Media investigations at that time had revealed that Babu’s company Vrushal Estate and Development Pvt Ltd had also bought a 61.02 acre rubber plantation at Koonamala Koonamkara in Perunad Village, under Pathanamthitta District in Kerala.
The rubber plantation, valued at over Rs 32.5 crores at then prevailing market rates but bought for Rs 5.50 crores and did not find any mention in his Income Tax declarations. For over two years little has been heard of this case.
The third area where one has to look into are investigations which are supposedly going on in the issuance of PWD contracts across various divisions, where the former PWD minister Churchill Alemao has been questioned. Here one Executive Engineer, whose corrupt practices were proven, P T Parker was suddenly given voluntary retirement with no action taken against him. It is widely believed that he had clear evidence of direct instructions from the minister to award contracts without advertising or tendering them or break large contracts into several parcels to avoid scrutiny. The investigations into the extent of the irregularities in the PWD has not even scratched the surface.
The government and administration in Goa has built in mechanisms to shield the corrupt and prevent real inquiry into corruption. The system protects the corrupt and the guilty and bodies formed to inquire and investigate can do only so much before giving up in frustration. Governments change, the system doesn’t.
