CBI books ex Associate Professor, Editor, others in Rs 1.56 crore `printing scam`

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case against a former Associate Professor and other officials of National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD) for allegedly misappropriating funds to the tune of Rs 1.56 crore meant for printing purposes.

The agency booked Rajnikant Gundabolu, former Associate Professor, Dr Kondaveeti Papamma, former Editor, GVS Sridhar Goud, former Accounts Officer, owners of private firms - Balaji Scans, Vaishnavi Laser Graphics and others including public servants in connection with the case.

The CBI alleged that the accused officials of NIRD and others “committed gross irregularities in printing works and falsely justified the bills and quotations”.

They further alleged that “no stock accounting was done and no certification was done about the quantity” and that the “tenders were not called and market rates were also not obtained by calling for quotations”.

The agency said that printing work was ordered based on verbal instructions, resulting in a loss of approximately Rs.1.56 crore to the government exchequer due to excess payments over and above the rates of contract printing.

It may be noted that the National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD) is an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Rural Development and undertakes a lot of printing work on a regular basis pertaining to the training material.

The CBI conducted searches at the offices and residential premises of the accused at various places which led to the “recovery of some incriminating documents”.