Leader of the Opposition Jagadish Shettar has alleged that the Water Resources Ministry headed by M.B. Patil has merged all small tenders of the Malaprabha modernisation canal works into one “mega package”, resulting in a scam amounting to Rs. 964 crore.
The BJP leader told presspersons here on Friday that 18 tenders of lesser value were first called for Malaprabha modernisation canal works which come under Cauvery Neeravari Nigam Ltd. (CNNL). But later all the works were merged into one large package without justifying its necessity, he said.
The department had called tenders for both modernisation of distributaries and sub-distributaries of the Malaprabha canal.
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He alleged that two engineers — S.F. Patil (chief engineer) and Bajranthi (superintendent engineer) — had been shunted out from their posting in the CNNL for “not cooperating” and signing files related to the merger of all the tenders into one package.