CBI probes alleged irregularities in bridge construction on Tamil Nadu rail line

New Delhi: The CBI has registered two cases against a retired engineer of Southern Railway and others for allegedly causing losses of around Rs 4 crore in construction work on the Milavittan-Melamarudur section of a new broad-gauge railway line in Tamil Nadu, officials said on Saturday.

The agency has named Muhammed Salaiya, then a deputy chief engineer in the railway’s Madurai construction division, in both FIRs. William Jai, then an executive engineer in the division, and others have also been named in one of the cases, they said.

The cases pertain to the 17.75-km Milavittan-Melamarudur section of a new broad-gauge line in Tuticorin district, which is part of the proposed Madurai-Tuticorin route. The Railway Board sanctioned the project in March 2014 at an estimated cost of Rs 120.70 crore, according to the FIRs.

In the first case, the CBI alleged that two minor bridges were constructed without approval, although the Railways had sanctioned only one bridge. A contract for the two structures was awarded to a firm owned by Y Chinna Reddy on October 3, 2016, “without obtaining prior approval from the competent authority”, it alleged.

The bridges were completed on July 10, 2017, at a cost of Rs 3.59 crore. They are located within 30 metres of each other on the same waterway and could have been combined, the agency alleged.

The CBI further alleged that the bridges were built about four metres higher than the approved level without any technical requirement, leading to increased earthwork and land acquisition costs and resulting in a loss of Rs 2.57 crore.

A proposal seeking approval for the bridges was initiated only on May 24, 2019, nearly two years after their completion, in an alleged attempt to justify the “illegal construction”, the FIR said.

Besides Salaiya, the CBI has named the firm, through its managing director, Reddy, as an accused in the case.

The second FIR, which also names Jai, alleges that the two engineers conspired with a Madurai resident in 2016-17 to construct a concrete retaining wall “without following norms and procedures of Railways”.

The CBI alleged that the wall should have been built after the bridges. Constructing it first left insufficient space for earthwork along the bridge approaches, resulting in the wall being buried. This caused a loss of Rs 1.44 crore, with the agency describing the proposal as “flawed and unjustified”, the FIR said.