Hyderabad: Officials of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation are hand in glove with private agencies to manipulate attendance registers and bills of field level security staff, resulting in theft of public money worth crores.
Private agencies hire the security staff and have been swindling crores of rupees by submitting fake bills. Several workers are present in attendance registers but not on the ground. The loot of public money is said to be around Rs 25 crore annually.
The corporation annually pays Rs 72 crore in salaries of security staff. Yet, it has no clue about the number of security guards employed, saying that as they work at headquarters, zonal offices, circle offices and parks, it is difficult to know the exact number!
Yet, the corporation has been paying Rs 15,000 per security guard and clearing bills worth Rs 72 crore annually.
When this newspaper conducted ground verification on July 16, the record book at Krishnakanth Park shows 18 security were on duty but only 13 were actually present. At the Telugu Talli flyover, two of three guards were absent, at Vishweshwaraya Park two out of three were absent and in Chacha Nehru Park, which is supposed to have 13 guards, had only three. Similar situations prevailed in many other city parks such as Jalagam Vengal Rao Park and Imliban Park.
At GHMC headquarters, and its zonal and circle offices it is difficult to identify the security guards as most of them are used to serve the personal needs of officials.
Highly placed sources in the corporation said that the security staff is used to serve tea and meals and even clean utensils!
Asked to comment on this shocking state of affairs, a senior official did not seem too concerned. He said that bills worth '6 crore are cleared on a monthly basis after “verifying the bills submitted by the private contractors”.
What about the manipulation of records and absence of guards in the field, then? The official said that they know this is going on and have ordered a field level enquiry and based on the outcome legal action will be taken against both the contractor and civic officials involved.
