Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai
Mumbai, Dec 11: The Mumbai Police Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has tightened its grip on the multi-crore Mithi River desilting scam, arresting two more contractors accused of siphoning off public funds meant for crucial monsoon-preparedness work.
The arrested accused have been identified as Sunil Upadhyay, director of SNB Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd., and Mahesh Purohit, partner at MB Brewers Firm. Both were taken into custody on Wednesday after investigators unearthed evidence showing that the duo allegedly pocketed crores from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) without doing the silt-removal work they were paid for.
The Mithi River—flowing through some of Mumbai’s most densely populated belts—plays a vital role in preventing large-scale flooding during monsoon. Any lapse in its desilting directly compromises the city’s drainage capacity. EOW officials say that the scale of fraud uncovered indicates years of deep-rooted collusion, signalling grave risk to public safety.
According to the EOW, the accused fabricated Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) by forging landowners’ signatures. These properties were shown as “launch pads” for dumping desilted material. The forged paperwork was then submitted to the BMC as evidence of completed work, enabling contractors to raise inflated bills and secure payments.
Investigators believe the racket operated for nearly a decade—from 2013 to 2023—involving contractors, middlemen and officials within the BMC’s Storm Water Drainage (SWD) Department.
A key revelation in the probe is the alleged tampering of tender conditions between 2021 and 2024. Investigators found that specific equipment—such as silt pushers and truck-mounted machinery—was deliberately introduced into tenders, allegedly to favour certain contractors. No verification was carried out to confirm whether such machinery was actually required or deployed.
Due to this tender engineering, per-metric-ton rates for silt removal were significantly inflated. Internal probe records estimate financial losses to the civic body at over Rs 65 crore, making this one of the costliest desilting scams pursued by Mumbai Police in recent years.
The latest arrests add to a growing list of accused already in custody. Earlier, the EOW had arrested Ketan Kadam, Jai Joshi, and contractor Shersingh Rathore, all allegedly involved in creating forged documents and acting as brokers in the scam.
An EOW official said, “The pattern is now clear—fabricated MoUs, bogus land-use permissions, manipulated photos and videos, and billing for machinery that never even reached the site.”
Upadhyay and Purohit were produced before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, who remanded them to police custody till December 16. Officials say more arrests are likely as forensic teams verify documents, assess machinery logs, and track financial trails.
Civic officials admitted that the revelations have increased pressure on the BMC to revamp its tendering and work-verification mechanisms. Both the EOW and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are expected to widen the probe, including tracking beneficiaries who profited through forged tenders, manipulated bills and illicit payment cycles.