Arappor Iyyakam, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) today (6 July) alleged that a loss of Rs 397 crore has been caused to the state's exchequer due to irregularities in the procurement process of distribution transformers by the Tamil Nadu Generation & Distribution Corporation Limited (TANGEDCO).
The organisation claimed that an examination of these tenders floated for transformers of capacities ranging from 25 KVA to 500 KVA showed that while there were around 20 bidders, all of them had quoted the same price.
It said that this points to a pre-fixing of the price through collusion between officials and companies participating in the tender so that the order could be distributed amongst them and all of them could get benefit.
Further, it alleged that the procurement price was higher than what was paid by other state electricity boards like the Rajasthan Electricity Board.
Among those accused by the organisation are the then minister for Electricity, Senthil Balaji, who is now under judicial custody after being arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), TANGEDCO financial controller V Kasi and IAS officer Rajesh Lakhoni.
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