The Forum for Good Governance (FGG) has found fault with the functioning of Crime Investigation Department (CID), accusing it of delaying investigations of crucial cases for years on.
In a letter to the Chief Secretary on Monday, the FGG has pointed out how the CID has been dragging its feet in dealing with the housing scam that the State government has ordered an enquiry into.
The government has ordered for a detailed investigation by the CID into Indiramma weaker section housing programme taken up between 2004 and 2014. It has further ordered the CID to take required follow-up action, including prosecution of the accused, and to recommend departmental action against erring officials.
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The CID began the inquiry in about 36 villages and found serious irregularities such as payments made without construction, payments made to old houses and partly constructed houses among others.
As per the information provided in reply to an RTI query, 23,190 houses were sanctioned during this period in 36 villages, and funds were released for 21,888 houses. However, only 18,588 houses were found to have been constructed. A total of 357 houses were partially constructed with the sole aim of claiming funds, while 1,022 houses were not constructed at all, despite payments being made in full.
Further, physical verification revealed that payments had been made for 1,454 houses which were old, but shown as newly constructed.
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The CID claimed that it needed help from engineers to ascertain the age of the houses to proceed further, and as the Roads & Buildings, and Panchayat Raj engineers themselves were involved in the construction of the houses, the DGP opined that the job should be handed over to those from Vigilance & Enforcement wing.
The letter by FGG also pointed out that the age of the structures could have been ascertained through Panchayat records where the date of issue of construction permission is recorded. Further, the house tax payment would give the year of construction, it said. Instead of resorting to these sources, the housing scam involving thousands of crores of rupees is kept in cold storage for the last four years.
The FGG mentioned that the number of pending cases with the department since the formation of Telangana has grown from 242 to 403, even while the expenditure incurred has increased from ₹1.63 crore in 2014-15 to ₹3.68 crore in 2017-18. The CID has a sanctioned strength of 820 persons, including one Additional DGP, three IGs, two DIGs, eight SPs and about 50 DSPs, besides the supporting staff.
“In Telangana, the working of CID is sub-optimal, and people are losing confidence in the effectiveness of this prime crime investigation organisation,” the Forum’s letter signed by its secretary M. Padmanabha Reddy said.