Crores paid to firm with same initials as Bihar govt dept

Fresh official records of flood relief, accessed by The Indian Express tonight, reveal a startling story of official subterfuge right under ...

Fresh official records of flood relief, accessed by The Indian Express tonight, reveal a startling story of official subterfuge right under the nose of Bihar’s top bureaucracy.

On paper, a sum of Rs 17.45 crore, released by the Bihar Government for the homeless and the marooned, was paid, in several instalments, from then Patna District Magistrate Gautam Goswami to BSSIC. This is Bihar Small Scale Industries Corporation, the sole supplier of relief.

In reality, the money did go to BSSI but this BSSI isn’t the government corporation—it is Baba Satya Sai Industries, a firm which figures nowhere in the official list of relief suppliers.

Story continues below this ad

The Indian Express can now piece together the method behind the siphoning of funds based on interviews with highly placed sources and a close scrutiny of official documents. In brief:

• Goswami has records showing requests from someone by the name of B K Singh posing as an employee of BSSIC (the government unit).

• Goswami promptly makes payment orders as per these requests—payments adding up to Rs 17.45 crore. However, the cheques issued from the DM’s account in the Pataliputra Gramin Bank (A/C No 3782) are not account-payee but drawn in favour of ‘‘Yourself.’’

• These are, in turn, used to apply for banker’s cheques in favour of Baba Satya Sai Industries.

Story continues below this ad

• The Gramin Bank issues banker’s cheques in favour of Baba Satya Sai Industries.

• In the counterfoil of Goswami’s cheque book, however, it is shown as having been paid to BSSIC.

• These banker’s cheques are submitted into the account of Baba Satya Sai Industries in IDBI bank in Patna operated by one Sanjeev Kumar Singh.

• Total money which flowed into the Baba Satya Sai Industries from the DM’s account is 17.45 crore.

	Guess what Goswami’s fig leaf is?

			• Contacted in Lucknow on Saturday, where he works with Sahara, Goswami was asked why the payments were shown as having made to ‘‘BSSIC’’ and why he didn’t spell it out. • ‘‘When you pay your insurance premium,’’ Goswami replied, ‘‘do you write the full name or just LIC? It is the job of the cashier to remember who has been given the payments.’’ On Monday, he was unavailable for comment. Story continues below this ad

Who is Sanjiv Kumar Singh? Is he linked to B K Singh, the man making the requests for payment to Goswami?

On Saturday, BSSIC Managing Director M Prasad admitted to The Indian Express that there was no employee called B K Singh. But new documents show that Prasad may have overlooked a key fact: On July 19, a week after B K Singh had asked for Rs 2 crore, Prasad wrote to Goswami requesting for ‘‘two passes in the name of B K Singh and Sanjeev Kumar to enter the premises of the airport.’’

Two days earlier, B K Singh had written—on plain paper—to Prasad to ‘‘authorise me and Sanjeev Kumar to deal with the Patna DM and airport.’’

Prasad’s recommendation to the Patna DM was ostensibly in response to this request.

Story continues below this ad

Today, despite repeated requests, Prasad was not available for comment.

Official documents show that on July 12 itself, B K Singh had asked for an advance of Rs 2 crore and was paid Rs 50 lakh on July 15.

Sources say both B K Singh and Sanjeev Kumar were both suppliers, to whom the BSSIC outsourced its initial orders worth Rs 22 lakh.

The only other place where Sanjeev Kumar finds mention in the district administration’s files is in a report by an Additional District Magistrate which says he had inspected the premises of Sanjeev Kumar in Hanuman Nagar in Patna and found the material there substandard. But B K Singh continues to stay on as the man making payment requests to the DM on BSSIC’s official stationery.