Mumbai: In a shocking new development in the ₹65 crore Mithi River desilting scam, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police has discovered that log sheets documenting the movement of dumpers used in the desilting process were fabricated, sources revealed.
According to EOW officials, the fabricated log sheets were used to generate fake bills, based on which payments were disbursed by the BMC Accounts Department to various contractors. The responsibility of maintaining these log sheets was reportedly assigned to a BMC engineer identified as Tayashette. However, investigations revealed that the entries in the log sheets were forged.
An EOW officer stated, “The entries in the log sheets are bogus and were created to pass off fake desilting bills, which were then cleared by the BMC without proper verification.”
The scam involved showing that silt was being removed from the Mithi River and dumped elsewhere using dumpers. As per protocol, every dumper movement was supposed to be recorded with vehicle numbers and timestamps, and a receipt was to be generated for each trip. However, investigations indicate that no actual desilting was carried out.
Instead, dumpers were allegedly used to remove construction debris for private builders, while fake logs were prepared to show multiple dumper trips for desilting. These falsified log sheets were submitted to the BMC to claim large sums of money.
Sources say the manipulation was orchestrated at the behest of Chief Engineer Prashant Ramugade, who instructed Assistant Engineer Tayashette to prepare the fake documents. The contractors are believed to have profited both by removing private debris and by submitting fraudulent bills to the BMC.
The EOW suspects that BMC officials approved payments without cross-verifying the authenticity of the work or documents, leading to large-scale misuse of public funds.
The investigation is ongoing, and further arrests and revelations are expected as the EOW deepens its probe into the fraudulent network involving civic officials and private contractors.
