Scam busted in government aircraft purchase in Bihar

Patna, Sep 2 (UNI) The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has uncovered financial irregularities in the state government's purchase of an aircraft last year when the state was under President's Rule.

According to the CAG report, an old aircraft was bought without floating a global tender and Rs 33 lakh was paid as commission.

No documents relating to the payment of the commission was available, the report added.

The report indicated that the state government has allegedly compromised on the quality of the aircraft as the plane was of older technology and the deal did not mention anything about its maintenance and supply of spare parts.

Meanwhile, state Chief Secretary G S Kang questioned the authority of the CAG to question the government.

Mr Kang told UNI over telephone from Gaya that the CAG had no right to say which plane the state government should buy and it could not question the government over the issue.

He said a committee, under the chairmanship of the then Chief Secretary K A H Subramaniyan, was constituted to purchase the aircraft.

Mr Kang, who was one of the members of the committee, said C.90 aircraft was bought from an American company Sasna King-Air at an expenditure of about 14.95 crore.

He said if a new plane was bought, it would have put an extra burden of about Rs five crore on the state exchequer for training the pilots.''Secondly, a technologically advanced aircraft would have been totally useless for the state government because except Patna, Gaya, Purniya and Darbhanga, other cities do not have advanced landing facilities,'' he added.

When asked, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar pleaded complete ignorance about the irregularities in purchase of the aircraft and assured to initiate adequate action after taking stock of the facts.

Meanwhile, dubbing it as a serious issue, RJD General secretary Shyam Rajak and former BJP state president Gopal Narayan Singh have demanded a high level.

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