UP Govt for CBI probe into siphoning of PF

Shahira Naim

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, November 3

The Yogi Adityanath government has recommended a CBI enquiry into the siphoning of Rs 2,631 crore of provident fund money of power corporation employees in a Mumbai-based unsecure and unlisted firm.

UP Power Minister Srikant Sharma on Sunday confirmed the investment of UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) employees’ provident fund in the tainted Dewan Housing and Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFCL) and CM Yogi Adityanath’s recommendation for a CBI probe.

The Lucknow police have also arrested UP Power Sector Employees Trust Secretary Praveen Kumar Gupta and former UPPCL Director (Finance) Sudhanshu Dwivedi and booked them under IPC sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document of electronic record).

CM Yogi has also recommended the Director General of the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) to investigate the case till the CBI takes over.

The investment of UPPCL employees PF started soon after the BJP government assumed office in March 2017 and continued till December 2018. Sources claim that the investments were made in the form of Fixed Deposits (FD) between March 2017 and December 2018. The company returned around Rs 1,000 crore after which it stopped payment.

However, shifting the blame on the previous Akhilesh Yadav government, Sharma alleged that the foundation of the scam was laid during the Samajwadi Party government in 2014 when the UPPCL trust empowered its secretary to invest the PF in companies from where higher returns could be expected.