PALAKKAD: The government’s decision to order a Vigilance inquiry into the irregularities found in the desilting of the Malampuzha, Walayar and Chulliyar dams could throw up many skeletons in the cupboard which could point fingers at even the political class.“The Vigilance Department has already received a letter for the probe. We have called for the files which were presented at the core committee on desilting of reservoirs which was headed by District Collector K V Mohan Kumar. I have requested the Vigilance Director for the separation of the Vigilance probe for the three dams since if one official was entrusted with all the three dams, it would take a long time,” DySP (Vigilance) S Satheesan said.Earlier, the core committee, which went through the files and conducted verifications through the Irrigation Department, had detected irregularities in the desilting of the Malampuzha, Walayar and Chulliyar dams in the district. It had recommended a Vigilance inquiry into the irregularities.The committee had found that the figures presented by the Kerala Mineral Development Corporation Limited (KMDCL) on the sand desilted from the reservoirs are different from the quantity sold and which were lying on the banks.The committee found that there was a shortage of 98,138 cubic metres of sand removed from these dams. The desilting charge alone comes to `1.32 crore.An amount of `150 is charged for desilting one cubic metre of sand, the committee had pointed out in its report.KMDCL which was the agency authorised by the state government to remove the sand from these three dams, claimed that it had removed 2,73,951 cubic metres of sand. But the measurement taken by the Irrigation Department on a directive of the core committee found a shortage of 98,138 cubic metres of sand.The KMDCL claimed that it had desilted 1,69,951 cubic metres of sand from Malampuzha, 79,000 cubic metres from Chulliyar and 25,000 cubic metres from Walayar. But the measurement of sand taken by the Irrigation Department in Malampuzha, Chulliyar and Walayar was much less. The report found that the total revenue from the sand sold from these reservoirs was `11.8 crore.But the expenditure incurred for desilting and transport was `6 crore and some more payments were pending.Former Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac had taken the initiative along with then Water Resources Minister N K Premachandran, and it was estimated that over `100 crore worth of sand was available in the Malampuzha dam alone.Though global expression of interest were invited initially for the removal of sand from the dam, only two companies bid for the tender. Finally, they also backed out. The committee also found that there were discrepancies in the bill amounting to `24 lakh which was presented by KMDCL for the laying of a 1.4 km road at Chulliyar to transport the sand. But the Irrigation Department estimated the expenditure to be in the vicinity of `8 lakh. Strangely the Government had already released an amount of `22 lakh for this road.The desilting of the reservoirs was a failure from the beginning. In Malampuzha, though initially many loads of sand were sold, subsequently the locals prevented lorries saying that they damaged the roads.There was also the ‘nokku coolie’ problem where around 200 workers were paid `300 a day for over a year for no work. The loading was done mechanically. Over `1 crore was paid as ‘nokku coolie’.Moreover, still a large quantity of sand lay on the banks of the Malampuzha dam, much of which has been washed back into the dam during the monsoon.
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