A civil contractor has been charged by the Kanjurmarg police for allegedly submitting fabricated paperwork in order to obtain the desilting of the Mithi River, which is valued at INR 87 crore.
For this project, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had requested bids in 2023–2024. According to the authorities, the contractor filed paperwork allegedly from a Netherlands-based company announcing that it was their authorised agent in the nation. However, the overseas company denied having any such affiliation with the bidder when the civic body asked the company in its letter.The violation was reported several months after it had been carried out, although Prashant Ramgude, the deputy chief engineer and approved officer for the Mithi river development project, filed a written complaint in October 2023.
The bidders had to have at least a year's worth of expertise operating multipurpose amphibious equipment and silt-pushing machinery.
Advocate Prathamesh Chhajed obtained the Maindeep Enterprises documents that were included in the tender through the Right to Information (RTI) process. He then filed a complaint with the deputy chief engineer, claiming that multiple documents that Maindeep Enterprises had submitted regarding Cleantec Infra from Navi Mumbai were fraudulent.
The local authority then responded to the Netherlands-based business whose letter Maindeep Enterprises had included with its proposal, asserting that Cleantec was their authorised partner in the nation, in order to verify the authenticity of the documents presented by the bidder.
The civic body was notified via email by the Netherlands-based company stating that they had provided were fraudulent and that they had not appointed anyone in India.
In light of this, the civic authority issued a show-cause notice to Maindeep Enterprises in March 2023 after failing to receive a suitable response. It also applied to the local police to have the forgery charge officially recorded. The contractor was blacklisted by the local authority for three years after submitting bogus paperwork, and they are verifying it.
In 2018, Police found that Maindeep Enterprises was placed on five-year blacklist due to poor quality road construction. Later on, the civic body shortened the duration to two years. In 2021 and 2022, the business was contracted to desilt the Mithi River. Anil Parab, an MLC, brought up the matter in the legislature.
A police official said that they have registered the offence and they will hold an inquiry into everything. A case has been registered under sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for cheating), and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code against the contractor.
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