Rajasthan: Raids at 25 places in Jal Jeevan mission-linked money laundering case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today conducted raids in poll-bound Rajasthan, including at the premises of a senior IAS officer, as part of its money laundering investigation into the alleged Jal Jeevan Mission scam.

The raids were conducted across 25 locations in Jaipur, which included the places of IAS officer Subodh Agarwal from the Public Health Engineering (PHE) department.

Some other linked people were also being covered under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), sources said.

The probe agency had carried out similar raids in this case in September.

The money laundering case stems from a Rajasthan anti-corruption bureau (ACB) FIR which alleged that Padamchand Jain, proprietor of Shree Shyam Tubewell Company, Mahesh Mittal, proprietor of Shree Ganpati Tubewell Company and others were involved in "giving bribes" to public servants in order to obtain illegal protection, obtaining tenders, getting bills sanctioned and covering up irregularities in respect of work executed by them in respect of various tenders received by them from the PHED.

"The suspects were also involved in the purchase of stolen goods from Haryana for using the same in their tenders/contracts and had also submitted fake work completion letters from IRCON to get PHED contracts," the ED had alleged in a statement issued earlier.

The Jal Jeevan mission launched by the Centre aims to provide safe and adequate drinking water through household tap connections. The scheme was being implemented by the state PHED in Rajasthan.

Rajasthan will vote for its 200-member Assembly on November 25 and the counting of votes will take place on December 3 along with four other states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Telangana.

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has alleged that the central agencies were acting on the directions of the BJP-led government at the Centre to target the Opposition.