Rajasthan Scandal: Third Arrest in Water Mission Fraud

Jaipur: The Enforcement Directorate has enacted a brand new apprehension as a part of its monetary malfeasance probe into purported discrepancies inside the Jal Jeevan Mission initiative in Rajasthan. Mahesh Mittal, the proprietor of Shree Ganpati Tubewell Firm, was detained on Wednesday. Subsequent judicial proceedings mandated his remand in ED custody till June 24.

Earlier within the week, the central company detained Padamchand Jain, proprietor of Shree Shyam Tubewell Firm. The Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), a Union authorities initiative, strives to furnish secure and ample consuming water by way of family faucet connections, with the implementation being carried out in Rajasthan by the state’s Public Well being Engineering (PHE) division.

Piyush Jain, apprehended by the federal company in February, was the preliminary arrest on this inquiry. Investigations revealed that Padamchand Jain and accomplices had been implicated in bribing public officers to safe illicit safety, procure tenders, sanction payments, and obfuscate anomalies within the executed works associated to varied tenders awarded by the PHED.

The accused had been additionally found to be procuring purloined items from Haryana to be used of their contracts and had submitted “fraudulent” work completion certificates from IRCON to acquire PHED contracts, the company asserted.

The ED’s cash laundering case relies on an FIR lodged by the anti-corruption bureau (ACB), which accused Padamchand Jain, Mahesh Mittal, Piyush Jain, and others.

Residences and places of work in Jaipur and Dausa, together with these of senior PHE division officers, former Rajasthan minister Mahesh Joshi, and IAS officer after which extra chief secretary Subodh Agarwal, have been scrutinized by the ED in relation to the investigation. Property valued at Rs 11.03 crore have been seized up to now.