Staff Correspondent

Allegations of irregularities-corruption and money laundering abroad have been made against Tushar Mohan Sadhu Khan, the former project director of the Safe Water Supply Project and now Chief Engineer of Department of Public Health and Engineering ( DPHE).

One Shamim Hossain has submitted the allegations to the Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives . He has misappropriated hundreds of crores of taka from the project through arbitrariness and poor quality work. In that letter, it was demanded to investigate and take action against him due to the looting of this money.

Shamim Hossain submitted the application to the concerned ministry on October 31 last year. Tushar Mohan Sadhu Khan, against whom these allegations are made, is currently serving as the Chief Engineer of the Department of Public Health. Earlier he held the post of Additional Chief Engineer (Planning) and had additional responsibility as Project Director of Safe Water Supply Project across Bangladesh.

According to the complaint, Tushar Mohan Sadhu Khan used to keep bribe money at his younger sister's house in Lalmatia of the capital.

Later, through contractor Dilip Babu, he used to send the money to his younger brother living in India and America and his daughter living in Canada. The letter also mentions that he sent most of the bribe money to his younger sister and brother. Before the younger sister-in-law died, she was the one who delivered the bribe money to the huldi merchant.

It is also mentioned in the complaint that he has anonymous car houses and various business establishments in his name in India, America, Canada, Australia, Dubai and Sri Lanka. It has also been alleged that bribe money was dealt through Anwar Hossain, the project manager of the safe water supply project in the whole of Bangladesh, but later he directly dealt bribe money through various contractors and executive engineers of various districts.

According to the rules, the safe water supply project in the whole of Bangladesh is supposed to be revised through the Planning Commission through its own ministry, but the project has been revised by adding new items together with the previous items in violation of the rules and outside the rules.

In the safe water supply project of the Directorate of Public Health and Engineering in the whole of Bangladesh, according to the upazila of DPP, allocations have been made for the installation of tube wells ranging from 150 to 15 thousand. DPP is supposed to install 15 thousand tube wells in just one district. Most of the upazilas have up to 4000, 5000, 6000, 7000 tubewells allocated.

In DPP, less allocation has been given in the upazila where previous projects have been completed and other projects are ongoing. Upazila where less work has been done in earlier projects and there is no ongoing work of other projects, more allocation has been given. Besides, the DPP is distributed equally among all the Unions of the country irrespective of the revised DPP as proportional rate of population. Tubewells have been allotted where they are not needed, instead of where they are very necessary.

According to the DPP, 1 tubewell for every 60 people is supposed to be installed, but in some places of the project, 20 people have got one tubewell. And in some places there is none. As a result neglected areas remain neglected. According to this, even if nearly 6 lakh tube wells are installed across the country, the people will not benefit in general. 6 lakh tender call has been completed. The project manager has invited tenders equally to benefit himself.

Package as mentioned in DPP is violet. And done so deliberately. There is no match between number and package with DPP. CSOs of 10 percent of lace work have been found to fall month after month. Its authenticity is found by verifying the tenders of different field stages of the district. These irregularities have been done in order to benefit the PD itself financially. As a result, timely work was not implemented in the field at certain times. Officials including PD are not worried about water quality.

Contractors have been billed despite excessive levels of arsenic and iron in tubewells. Where the water quality is bad, there is a vessel type pressure filter worth Tk 10 lakh 60 thousand in DPP. But it is also mentioned in the complaint that the low quality ``RO filter'' of Rs 18,000 has been installed in place of all those bad water quality by PD's previous acquaintance and own company. DPP had piped water supply in 491 upazilas. There is no progress in most of the districts. People are not benefiting as only tenders are called but not implemented on time.

The Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Department (IMED) in the Ministry of Planning has complained of various irregularities in the work of the project. Among these, there are allegations against Tushar Mohan Sadhu Khan for not ensuring the accountability of the construction defect contractor. In spite of being one of the controllers of the project management, there are weaknesses and errors like not holding enough number of PIC and PSC meetings and training at the field level.

On the condition of anonymity, an official of the concerned department said that Steamator Anwar Saheb has earned more than what Tushar Mohan Sadhu Khan earned through irregularities and corruption.

As the reason, he said, 'Most of the money came from the hands of Anwar Sahib. Sir (Sadhu Khan) did not talk about these things at the field level and with the contractors. Anwar Saheb used to do everything. He kept chief engineer in the dark from many things.

Chief Engineer Sadhu Khan was not available for his comments despite message was dropped in his WhatsApp No.