"Evidence will somehow come": Union Minister Lekhi on alleged Rs 3,753 crore Delhi Jal Board 'scam'

New Delhi [India], November 18 : Hitting out at the AAP government over an alleged Rs 3,753 'scam' in Delhi Jal Board, Union Minister Meenakashi Lekhi on Saturday said that evidence in the case will somehow come to the fore after investigation.
The Union Minister said that the Rs multicrore scam in Delhi Jal Board was done on the lines of the Sheesh Mahal scam.
"Evidence is a matter of investigation and some documents will somehow come in the investigation. We got to know through sources that they have continuously done scams of Rs 3,753 crore under various heads...In many places, accounting details are not there...During this time, the government was of the Aam Aadmi Party and Arvind Kejriwal was the CM and other ministers were also there," Lekhi said while speaking to ANI.
Earlier in the day, the Bharatiya Janata Party alleged that the AAP government has done a Rs 3,753 crore worth 'scam' in Delhi Jal Board on the lines of the liquor policy scam and Sheesh Mahal scam, both of which are already under the scanner of central agencies.
The BJP claimed that the Aam Aadmi Party government paid an extra 35 per cent against the allocated budget for the DJB's project to supply water tankers in the city.
Addressing a press briefing at BJP headquarters here, Minister of State for External Affairs Meenakashi Lekhi said that the 'tanker mafia menace' in the national capital has grown in the last 10 years.
"They (AAP) came to the power to end the tanker mafia menace, which they alleged were operating under the then Sheila Dixit government in Delhi, but the tanker mafia is still operating today," She said, adding that the tanker is costing Rs 10,000/- at places where the government has not laid water pipes in the streets.
"And people have no option, money is collected and given to the tanker mafia. The power of the tanker mafia has not decreased but has increased," she said.
The MoS said that the AAP government awarded Delhi Jal Board contracts to their existing contractors and the 'scam' was done on similar lines as it was done during the renovation of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's official residence 'Sheesh Mahal'.
"(A total of) 12,000 work orders at a cost of Rs 600 crore were awarded. Per order was awarded at less than Rs 5 lakh so that the tendering process could be bypassed and they (the AAP government) can give the work orders to the existing contractors," Lekhi said.
She also flagged several alleged mismatches between the financial statements of the Delhi Jal Board and the bank statements.
"So a total amount of Rs 3,753 crore worth of scam has taken place in DJB and a similar process has been adopted in awarding work like it was done in the Sheesh Mahal scam, where every amount was kept less than Rs 10 crore so that the existing contractors could be contracts without undertaking the process of tendering," she added.
Addressing the presser, Delhi BJP chief Virendraa Sachdeva said that an extra 35 per cent of the allocated budget was paid by the AAP government in lieu of kickbacks.
"There was a tender of Rs 637.23 crore for the tankers. But more than 35 per cent, which is Rs 215.97 lakh, were given unnecessarily, because (they) wanted kickbacks, like they did in the excise scam.
The central agencies are already probing the alleged excise scam and AAP's senior leaders Sanjay Singh and Manish Sisodia are already in jail in this connection.
The Enforcement Directorate, earlier, claimed that Sanjay Singh and his associates played a part in the Delhi government's decision to give licenses to alcohol shops and merchants in 2020, causing losses to the state exchequer and violating anti-corruption laws.
Meanwhile, the Delhi BJP questioned CM Kejriwal's silence and challenged him to refer the DJB case to the ED or CBI.
"(When will) Kejriwal, who speaks on every issue, and his minister, Atishi, open their mouths about this scam? If Arvind Kejriwal has courage, then (he should) refer this case of Jal Board to CBI or ED," the Delhi BJP leader said.
He said that if Kejriwal refrains from the CBI investigation, then the BJP will move to Delhi LG and demand an investigation into the entire financial accounts of the Delhi Jal Board.