Uralungal's ₹42 lakh splash for Cliff House pool renovation based on mere phone call, reveals RTI query
RTI disclosures reveal that Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's official residence incurred substantial untendered expenditures, including pool renovation and facility upgrades, initiated following oral directives from administrative staff without formal bidding procedures.
RTI disclosures reveal that Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's official residence incurred substantial untendered expenditures, including pool renovation and facility upgrades, initiated following oral directives from administrative staff without formal bidding procedures.
RTI disclosures reveal that Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's official residence incurred substantial untendered expenditures, including pool renovation and facility upgrades, initiated following oral directives from administrative staff without formal bidding procedures.
Thiruvananthapuram: Malpractices related to the modernisation of the swimming pool at Cliff House, the official residence of the Chief Minister, during the term of the first Pinarayi Vijayan government have been exposed following a query based on the Right to Information Act.
As per the document received under the RTI Act, the Tourism Director had, in November 2017, assigned Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society with the work, amounting to ₹29 lakh, of renovating the swimming pool solely based on an oral directive issued over the phone by an Additional Private Secretary (PS) of the then Chief Minister.
The works to modernise the pool and installing a roof were awarded to Uralungal within a week. The Additional PS told the Tourism Director over phone that these works should be completed within a month. Based on these phone calls, the works were allotted to Uralungal, the Tourism Director has noted in an official file related to the procedures.
However, he refrained from naming the Additional PS who contacted him in the file. At that time, there were five Additional Private Secretaries to the Chief Minister.
Incidentally, the Tourism Department spent another ₹12.48 lakh for the maintenance of the swimming pool between 2018 and 2021, taking the total expenditure during the first term of the Pinarayi government to enable the Chief Minister and his family to utilise the facility to ₹41.48 lakh.
Similarly, ₹1.35 lakh was spent to paint the exteriors of Cliff House for the dinner hosted for the Sultan of Sharjah in September, 2017. This work too was assigned to Uralungal without tender, considering it as an emergency situation.
Swapna Suresh, an accused in the diplomatic gold smuggling case who had accompanied the Sharjah Sultan, had later alleged that the Sultan, who had visited Kerala to attend an event in Kozhikode, was invited to the Cliff House in Thiruvananthapuram to discuss certain business deals of the Chief Minister’s family.
Lakhs for lift, cow dung pit
The documents obtained under the RTI Act by M T Thomas, a resident of Mulakkulam South, Peruva, also reveal that the government spent ₹39.74 lakh to install a lift in Cliff House in 2023. An additional expenditure of ₹3 lakh was incurred for a cow dung pit. The amount to install electric lights in the cowshed was ₹3.68 lakh. A total of ₹25.48 lakh was spent during 2021-26 for electrical renovation alone. The amount for installation and maintenance of air-conditioners came to ₹8 lakh.