The Madhya Pradesh government has taken or is taking action against 392 officials of civic bodies across the State over alleged financial irregularities, and seven have been dismissed so far, a senior official said on Sunday, The Hindu reported.
Those facing action include 135 chief municipal officers (CMOs). Sanjay Dubey, Additional Chief Secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Department, said the action against CMOs ranged from demotion and withheld increments to dismissal, depending on how serious the irregularity or negligence was.
He said more than 80 government contractors had also faced action, for irregularities such as supplying items at inflated rates, and that about ₹3–4 crore in excess payments had been recovered from officials.
How the purchases are tracked
According to Mr. Dubey, civic bodies must make all purchases through the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal, and payments can be made only through the e-Nagar Palika portal.
The department checks whether purchases stay within spending limits, then uses artificial intelligence on the data from the two portals to compare the prices different civic bodies paid for the same items around the same time. It also looks at whether one vendor charges different bodies different rates, and whether tenders are split up to favour a particular contractor.
Civic bodies across the State place around 1,000 to 1,500 purchase orders a day, he said.
The viral video
Mr. Dubey's remarks came days after a video surfaced of him telling municipal officials that the government was tracking their purchases. In it, he cited two civic bodies, without naming them: one bought a garbage-collection vehicle for ₹2 lakh, while the other paid ₹6 lakh for the same vehicle, citing the addition of four dustbins.
He said the video was from a twice-yearly training session for municipal commissioners, CMOs, engineers and other officials, held to show them how their work is monitored.