The CBI has booked a Chief Project Manager of the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) Limited, Van Oord India Private Limited (VOIPL) and others for alleged corruption of about ₹.50 crore in the dredging work at the Mumbai Harbour Channel and the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Channel in 2020-21.
The official, B. Durga Prasad Babu, has been accused of conniving with the Mumbai-based company pertaining to the award/execution of the tender.
The DCI had invited the tender for dredging and dumping the extracted material at a designated site in order to achieve the design depth in the navigational channel. The payment was to be made based on the quantity of dredged and dumped material. In this regard, three work orders were issued to the lowest bidder, VOIPL, with a cumulative quantity of work as 20.01 million cubic metre, with the overall contract value of ₹.144.96 crore.
