Satyendra Dubey - Exposing Corruption

Exposing Corruption

The GQ project had strict controls to ensure that the construction work would be carried on by experienced firms with proper systems. A second independent contract was given for supervision of the project. However, Dubey discovered that the contracted firm, Larsen and Toubro, had been subcontracting the actual work to smaller low-technology groups, controlled by the local mafia. When he wrote to his boss, NHAI Project Director SK Soni, and to Brig Satish Kapoor, engineer overlooking the supervision, there was no action. According to the police's First Information Report (FIR) after his murder, Dubey had been facing several threats following his action against corruption at Koderma. A subsequent FIR filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) named both Soni and Kapoor. In August 2003 when he was transferred to Gaya, a transfer which he opposed since he felt that it did not serve the interests of NHAI. At Gaya, he exposed large-scale flouting of NHAI rules regarding sub-contracting and quality control. At this time he took a departmental test and was promoted as deputy general manager, which made him eligible to take charge as project director. Since there was no project director's post in Gaya, he was likely to be posted to Koderma soon. There was widespread sentiment (based on their pattern of operation), that the criminal nexus, opposed to having him as director, may have been behind his murder.