Patna: The next time you travel on a potholed stretch of the national highway, remember who to blame.
On Monday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested a general manager of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for accepting a bribe of Rs 15 lakh from a private company to clear bills. Raids carried out throughout the day at several locations across Patna, Muzaffarpur, Samastipur, Begusarai and Purnea in Bihar, Ranchi in Jharkhand and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, led to the seizure of nearly Rs 1.18 crore unaccounted for cash and several incriminating documents.
The CBI, in a release, has stated that the NHAI official arrested is Ram Prit Paswan, GM of the regional office of the organisation in Patna. The monthly salary of an official at that position in the NHAI can go up to beyond Rs 200,000 per month.
The others arrested in this case are Suresh Mahapatra, general manager, M/s Ram Kripal Singh Construction Pvt Ltd and Barun Kumar and Chetan Kumar, two employees of the company.
The CBI has registered an FIR against seven others in this case, including Y B Singh, chief general manager and regional officer of the NHAI at its regional office in Patna. A person at that grade can earn a salary of nearly Rs 250,000 per month.
The other FIR named include Kumar Saurabh, deputy general manager, Lalit Kumar, project director, Anshul Thakur, site engineer, and Hemen Medhi, additional general manager (accounts), NHAI.
The CBI has also named M/s Ram Kripal Singh Construction Pvt Ltd in the FIR. The website of the company claims that it was founded in 1971 and has completed 200 major projects since. The company claims to have built stadia, highways and buildings.
