AAP councillors accuse Municipal Council Kurali Chairman of scam of lakhs of rupees in connivance with officials Chairman Jiti Padyala denies allegations

Mohali, Nov 29:
Amid the alleged corruption going on in Municipal Council Kurali, the sitting councillors of Aam Aadmi Party have accused the sitting Chairman Ranjit Singh Jiti Padyala of scamming lakhs of rupees in the name of no development in connivance with officials and private contractors.

Speaking during a press conference held at Mohali Press Club today, Councillors Bahadur Singh Ward No. 10, Nandipal Bansal Ward No. 6, Kashmir Singh MC Ward No. 12, Pradeep Kumar Rura former MC, Rana Harish Kumar present Chairman Market Committee Kurali, Navdeep Singh Saini Block President Aam Aadmi Party, Ashwani Kumar, Bhavna Sharma husband MC Ward No. 9 etc said that scams worth lakhs of rupees have taken place in Municipal Council Kurali, which should be investigated immediately by the Vigilance Bureau and the city’s wasted money should be saved.

Speaking to the media on this occasion, he said that in the name of development works in Nagar Parishad Kurali, which has a population of about 50 thousand, Pradhan Ranjit Singh Jeeti Padyala is allegedly looting in connivance with private and officials and how corruption is being done by giving money to them without doing any work. He said that this case of scam came to light when he sought information under RTA from the Principal Secretary Local Government about other works in Nagar Parishad Kurali on 17-8-2024. According to the information, it was found that two works of ward number 12, whose estimated cost was Rs 50 lakh, construction of security wall and buffer zone, beautification of processing dump sites including three layer plantation, estimated cost is Rs 12.50 lakh, in which 450 and a half feet wall and a room were to be built, the cost of which was about Rs 62.20 lakh, while not a single rupee worth of work was done on the spot and Nagar Parishad Kurali was found to have a financial loss by paying Rs 62.20 lakh for these incomplete works.

He said that while paver blocks were to be installed in the first two estimates, according to the estimate, 32 thousand square feet of paver worth Rs 17.50 lakh was to be installed, but not a single paper block was installed on the spot. An application was given to us by the residents of the locality regarding this work and development work worth Rs 12.50 lakh was also not done, while the contractor has also been paid for the work. In this way, the contractors as well as the government are being cheated.

He further said that group development works were done by Nagar Parishad Kurali from 01-01-2022 to 01-08-2024, which were up to 20-20 thousand through quotations, no information was given about them. In this way, the Municipal Council President in connivance with the officials misused the tax collected from the public. Along with this, government orders were openly violated.

Meanwhile, all the councilors have strongly demanded through the media that the investigation of this entire matter should be done under the supervision of the state instead of the supervision of the Local Bodies Department, so that the truth can come out. He said that in relation to these complaints, a letter was written to the Principal Secretary, Local Bodies Punjab on 17-9-2024 to conduct a high-level investigation into these scams, but no investigation was done by the department. He said that after this, on 06-10-2024, a legal notice was sent to the Principal Secretary Local Bodies and Chief Vigilance Officer Local Bodies through Advocate HC Arora of the Hon’ble Punjab and Haryana High Court, but no action has been taken yet. On this occasion, he said that a Richter Petition No. 30407 dated 28-10-2024 was filed in the Hon’ble Punjab and Haryana High Court, which has been approved by the Hon’ble Court and a reply has been sought from the Local Bodies Department by 06-02-2025.

(Dabbi)
What does Chairman Ranjit Singh Jeeti Padyala have to say:

During this, when the Chairman of Nagar Parishad Kurali, Ranjit Singh Jeeti Padyala, was talked to on the phone, he said that all the allegations leveled against me are baseless. He also said that there is a Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab, if they were wrong then they could have taken legal action against me at any time. On the contrary, he alleged that the councillors are deliberately obstructing the development work.

Photo caption: Aam Aadmi Party MC of Kurali Municipal Council and others during a press conference at Mohali Press Club.