Pankaja denies scam, says she saved govt money

Further delay would have hit funds sent by the centre to Maharashta

GN Bureau | July 1, 2015


#pankaja munde   #pankaja munde bjp scam   #pankaja munde scam  

Maharashtra minister Pankaja Munde, under attack in two instance of scams, has firmly denied that she has done anything wrong.

On Wednesday, addressing a press conference in Mumbai, Munde gave a point-by-point rebuttal of the charges against her.

Asserting that all allegations against her were "politically motivated", Munde reiterated that she followed the rate contracts put into place by the previous Congress regime.

The Maharashtra leader said that while several things were coming up in different sections of media, she had convened the press conference to give the true picture.

The BJP leader claimed that the opposition had prepared a file of allegations against her and gave it to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in the first week of May. She added that the chief minister did not find any wrongdoing on her part.

Asserting that all allegations against her were "politically motivated", the BJP leader reiterated that she followed the rate contracts put into place by the previous Congress regime, adding that she had flouted no rules.

Apart from being accused of flouting norms in Rs 206 crore Chikki Scam, Munde is also under the scanner for awarding a contract for a construction of a dam to a private company, even though the company was disqualified.

Pankaja clarified that funds released by the Centre would have lapsed if there would have been further delay in ordering purchase of good by the women and child development department. "My intention was to save every penny of the government fund," she claimed.

"There is no question of favouring anyone. Contractors who were given contracts are not new. Same contractors have been supplying goods during the NCP government's regime. The contract process was started by the last government," Pankaja said.

The scam first came to light on June 15, when the office of Pankaja Munde received a letter from Ahmednagar Zila Parishad president Manjushree Gund complaining about the quality of chikki (a popular snack) distributed to tribal students under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).

Comments

 

Other News

Cabinet approves Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme

The union cabinet chaired by PM Narendra Modi has approved the Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme (MPMS) with a budgetary outlay of Rs 62,500 crore. It aims to further scale up the production, deepen domestic value addition, strengthen supply chain resilience, enhance global competitiveness. It

Building infrastructure is only half the job

Recent stories of stolen railway wires, disappearing communication towers and missing public infrastructure are often treated as bizarre law-and-order failures of India. Yet they raise a more fundamental question. Why does the State often discover the disappearance of a public asset only after it has alrea

New Delhi’s Indo-Pacific strategy enters a new phase

India appears to be investing fresh dynamism in its Indo-Pacific strategy. At the time when the US, under president Donald Trump, has adopted a conciliatory approach towards China and has changed the name of America’s Indo-Pacific Command to just Pacific Command, India has quietly moved towards con

CAG flags major fiscal lapses in Maharashtra

Maharashtra`s fiscal management has come under sharp scrutiny after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, in its State Finances Audit Report for 2024-25, flagged significant budgetary inefficiencies, accounting irregularities, understatement of key fiscal indicators and widespread governanc

The health sector research we are not doing

Some neglect is loud. This kind is quiet. It sits in research never commissioned, data never collected, questions never asked. In South Asia, that quiet has let the region’s worst health problems stay understudied, underfunded, and out of sight of those who could act.  

Study flags accessibility and last-mile challenges on Mumbai Metro Aqua Line

Mumbai Metro Line 3 (Aqua Line), the city`s first fully underground metro corridor and one of its largest public transport investments, represents a major engineering achievement and has been widely welcomed by commuters. However, the overall commuter experience continues to be constrained by accessibili

Upcoming Conferences





Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter