How an NCP MLA robbed Dalits of rickshaws to buy luxury cars
The dust over a Rs 600 crore scam in the state-run Annabhau Sathe Development Corporation (ASDC), a body established to assist the Dalits financially, is not likely to settle even a year after the scam came into light. The then chairman of ASDC, Ramesh Kadam, an MLA belonging to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), is behind bars for siphoning off funds released by the state government. However, the never-ending tales of his tactics have kept the officers with the state Crime Investigation Department (CID) busy.
An investigation by the CID had already established that Kadam had fraudulently splurged the money meant for buying rickshaws and taxis for eligible members of the Dalit community to buy 59 luxury cars for NCP office-bearers and workers. Now, it has come into light that he had paid those workers Rs 50,000 each for petty expenses.
In some cases, the amount for two months was released lump sum. "Kadam was so blunt that he transferred the money from the corporation's bank account to the workers' account," minister of state for social justice Dilip Kamble told MAIL TODAY.
The CID has found that Kadam had accompanied the managing director of the corporation to a nationalised bank to withdraw an amount of Rs 10 crore in cash. Kadam had insisted that a cheque of Rs 10 crore should be drawn with his signature as he was heading the corporation.
He forced the MD to take his signature on the cheque but the bank refused to pay, saying the cheque had become invalid since the chairman was not supposed to sign on it. A furious Kadam accompanied the MD and the bank released the amount without any objection. Kadam also duped his two sisters to the tune of Rs 3 crore each.
He produced dummies in the bank, transferred the amount to their bank accounts and later made them withdraw the amount. When the police reached out to his sisters, they found that they were struggling to feed themselves because of poverty. "His sisters are illiterate but the money transaction that took place in the banks have their signatures," Kamble said.
The beneficiary NCP workers abandoned the luxury cars near Pune, Satara and Sangli fearing action from the CID. They have claimed that they were unaware that the "gifts" were actually an outcome of a scam. The CID, however, is not in a mood to accept their claims.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)