ગુજરાતી
English
Ahmedabad, July 15, 2025
Extra bills worth Rs 150 crore were paid during the service period of Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation Chief Engineer Ramesh Bhagora. During Bhagora’s tenure, extra bills were approved in a few days. During retirement, bills worth Rs 150 crore were paid very quickly.
Industry Minister
Defector and Industry Minister Balwant Rajput, GIDC Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Rahul Gupta, Departmental Secretary Mamta Verma, GIDC MD DK Praveena tried to save him without taking any action. 18 officials and many BJP leaders kept coming forward to save Ramesh, who has been doing illegal work for 30 years. He is a pawn of the top BJP leader. The real scam has been done by some BJP leaders. Despite the officials knowing, they did not take any action. If Shankarsinh Vaghela’s brother and Industry Minister Rajput is not aware of this scam, then he has no right to remain in the post of minister.
Audit
The investigating agency has prepared a report on the scam of crores in GIDC. In June 2025, three preliminary observation memos issued by the Principal Accountant General (Audit) – Gujarat from Bharuch stated that there was a scam of more than Rs 60 crore. The compiled audit report of GIDC is pending.
In the audit conducted in June, details of direct irregularities of Rs 60 crore were given in the para. If we look at the preliminary report, an amount of Rs 60 crore has been embezzled to GIDC by an officer, corruption has been done.
On July 1, again an excess payment of Rs 30 crore was made in a tender.
Work without tender
According to the serious errors found in the audit report, works worth about Rs 35 crore have been given to a reliable agency without any tender. The terms of the tender have been amended to benefit reliable companies, despite the company providing incorrect information, it has been amended and a particular company has been benefited.
FMG testing
Specifically, the company has been benefited by not paying an amount of about Rs 3 crore 50 lakh to FMG for testing, which should have been taken from that agency.
Pollution equipment not received
Air pollution equipment was to be installed at some places. In Dahej and Vapi areas, Rs 6 crore 50 lakh has been paid without installing the equipment and without its certificate. Even if the tender has already been decided or the goods for the consumer, that is, the agency that got the tender should have completed it, but later the conditions were amended, the cost of which was also borne by GIDC. Agencies were benefited by Rs 3 crore 50 lakh.
According to the audit report, the center of this scam is a private company named “M/s Nexteng Enviro Private Limited”. GIDC has so far approved additional works worth about Rs 1.5 crore. A contract worth Rs 35.54 crore was awarded to Ms Nexteng without any tender in the name of Real Time Heavy Metal Monitoring System (RTHMS), Air Quality Monitoring System (AQMS) and other environmental works.
The company had wrongly shown the ‘bidding capacity’ required for technical qualification. At that time the company had works worth Rs 50.26 crore underway, but these details were concealed.
GIDC had reduced the experience value for bids from 80 per cent to 40 per cent against government guidelines. So that the selection is in favour of a particular company.
Deduction of 5% free maintenance guarantee (FMG) and 1% testing charges from the contractor’s bid is mandatory. But the audit revealed that GIDC did not make these deductions of Rs 3.48 crore from the total bill paid of Rs 57.92 crore and paid it directly to the contractor.
15 RTHMS equipment are not working till date. Three equipments have not even been installed yet, while many others are not even connected to the pipeline. The company was paid ₹6.59 crore without giving a “certificate of completion of installation”.
In four separate work orders of air quality monitoring (AQMS), an additional payment of one and a half times the amount was made for such work under a separate heading for ‘consumables’, totalling Rs 3.39 crore.
Biggest scam in 5 years
In the last 5 years, GIDC had made payments despite no work being done on the site and no machine being installed.
Incompetence
He was made chief engineer without qualification and was re-employed after retirement. BJP’s trusted officers were given postings at many places. Officers who were not ready to do wrong were sidelined.
Who is currently on a one-year extension after retirement. And against him, his own department secretary Mamta Verma and MD DK Praveena had given a written memorandum to the Chief Minister. Then he was removed from the post, but no inquiry was conducted. Industry Minister Balvantsinh Rajput is responsible. DK Praveena is the Managing Director of GIDC. It was decided not to give extension to Ramesh Bhagora now.
Rahul Gupta’s suspicious move
When Bhagora was given the charge of Chief Engineer in July 2023, it was also opposed. In an order issued by Rahul Gupta, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC), bypassing two regular superintendents, an in-charge superintendent engineer was given the additional charge of Chief Engineer. There was a hidden motive behind this move. Which has now come to light. c
Gupta had announced at that time that in the interest of administration, Bhagora is being given additional charge of Chief Engineer. Two flood
regular part-time superintending engineers Yusuf Pathan and B.C. Warli were on duty. By removing them, an executive engineer, who was made the superintending engineer in charge, has now been given the charge of chief engineer.
GIDC
There are 70 thousand factories or plots in 41 thousand hectares in 239 GIDCs.
Investigation
A committee should be formed to investigate all these works. Payments were made without the approval of the chief engineering or finance department.
People give evidence of corruption, but no action is taken. There should be departmental investigation, ACB, ED, Income Tax investigation.
Amit Chavda
In a press conference in the Gujarat Legislative Assembly, Congress party leader Amit Chavda said that the audit department has submitted a primary copy of the Principal Accountant General audit report in June. In the tenders that take place in GIDC, the amount is fixed, the contract is given and then crores of rupees are given as extra payment.
Organization of scams
Many scams have come to light in GIDC earlier also, corruption is rampant, a network of filling their pockets in the name of industrial development is running in a systematic manner in GIDC.
Syndicate
A syndicate of some officers is running which systematically does scams of crores of rupees. The tenure of GIDC Chief Engineer Ramesh Bhagora has been surrounded by many controversies. Despite being ineligible from the beginning of the job, he got many promotions. He was given additional charge of many places.
Money in elections
Higher officials had complained against Bagora. But no action was taken. When elections were held, responsibility of some districts was given. Election money was delivered to specific people in specific districts. Corruption was happening without any fear with the blessings of the top.
Gangajal
BJP talks about Operation Gangajal very sincerely. Due to BJP leaders, corruption happened openly during their time. The way corruption has become common in the BJP rule in Gujarat for three decades, commission taking is going on, with the blessings of the people sitting in the government, with connivance, the public’s tax money is being looted openly, one scam after another is coming to light.
Crores of scams in Nal Se Jal Yojana, crores of scams in MNREGA, crores of scams in land and not lakhs but scams of less than crores are going on in Gujarat. (Google translation from Gujarati)
