Kolkata: During the day-long marathon raid and search operation at 12 locations in connection with the multi-crore municipalities recruitment case in West Bengal, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths have been able to procure some crucial documents indicating the rate lists for recruitments in different posts in these urban civic bodies.
Of the 12 places where the central agencies conducted marathon raid and search operations on Thursday included the residences of the state food & supplies Minister Rathin Ghosh and the chairmen and vice-chairmen of various municipalities in North 24 Parganas district.
Sources said that as per the documents seized by the central agency sleuths, irregularities were made mainly in recruitments for posts like field workers, cleaning staff, drivers, typists and clerks in the grades of Group C and Group D. There were separate rate lists for each of these posts, said the sources.
As per clues secured by the raiding officials, the posts for typists and Group C clerks attracted the highest rates ranging from Rs 6.5 lakh to Rs 7 lakh, followed by that for Group D clerks between Rs 4.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. The rates for field workers, cleaning staff and drivers, sources said, were the lowest ranging between Rs 3.5 lakh and Rs 4 lakh.
Meanwhile, the state food & supplies Minister Rathin Ghosh, at whose residence the ED conducted a marathon raid & search operation for around 19 hours on Thursday, claimed that the move by the central agency was deliberately to malign his image.
Ghosh’s role, as the erstwhile chairman of Madhyamgram municipality, is under the scanner of ED.
As per ED estimates at least 1,500 individuals were recruited for different posts in different urban civic bodies in the state illegally against some financial consideration.
Ghosh’s name had surfaced following incriminating documents seized by the ED sleuths from ABS Infozone, the agency outsourced by different municipalities in the state for conducting the recruitment examination process there,
ABS Infozone is owned by private promoter Ayan Sil, who is already in judicial custody because of his alleged involvement in the multi-crore cash-for-school-job case in West Bengal.
ED officers for the first time received clues about the multi-crore urban civic bodies’ recruitment case, while conducting raid and search operations at Sil’s residence in March this year in connection with the school-job-scam case.
–IANS