New Delhi:
On a slew of fronts, those assigned to investigate the congenital corruption of the Commonwealth Games started making progress today.
Led by Jaipal Reddy, the Group of Ministers (GoM) that was set up to oversee the Games met on Monday evening, bringing Sheila Dikshit and Suresh Kalmadi under one roof after a weekend where they traded charges over the root of corruption. The Delhi Chief Minister announced on Saturday that money loaned to the Organizing Committee seemed to have been misused; Kalmadi said Dikshit would do well to double-check her own departments, many of which are now under investigation.
Reddy announced that the term of the Organizing Committee had been extended - a technicality to ensure that its members are easily available and cooperate with the different agencies that are now scrutinizing every transaction sanctioned by the committee under Kalmadi's chairmanship.
Income Tax officials headed an hour later to the office of the Organizing Committee to collect files.
Separately, the man who will lead a massive audit of the expenditure on the Commonwealth Games today shared his ambitious deadline. In three months, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) says, his team will present its findings on the Games to the government.
The Games were suffused with an array of corruption charges. Now, 24 different bodies - including 14 departments of the Delhi government and the Organising Committee - will have to explain why so much money was spent, and what it was spent on.
CAG Vinod Rai said the audit has three goals -to establish "the physical outcome of expenditure, accountability, and whether it has been most optimal utilization of resources." Every contract will be scrutinized by a team of 80-100 CAG staffers, who've been asked to immediately cancel any vacation plans.
An interim report of the CAG submitted before the Games began found that consultants picked for sponsorship and broadcast rights deals had been selected despite not offering the best terms to the Organizing Committee.
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), another agency involved in the government's investigation, has reportedly discovered that at least 11 major contracts were so inflated that they caused a loss of 500 crores.