Mayawati’s elephants: Overcharged, underpaid

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Amid a series of alleged scams during Mayawati’s reign in Uttar Pradesh, a new ‘Jumbo’ graft has come into light.

The scam was unearthed when police arrested Rajkiya Nirman Nigam contractor Aditya Agarwal on a complaint by Madan Lal who alleged that he was asked to carve marble elephant statues at the rate of Rs 48 lakh each but actually was paid much less.

Mr Lal, a sculptor from Agra, said in his complaint that while he was paid the agreed amount for the first two statues but for the third he was paid only Rs 7.5 lakh.

Another complainant, Ashok Kumar, also from Agra, said that he is yet to be paid the full amount for statues that he supplied for Mayawati’s memorials including Bauddha Vihar Shanti Upvan. “When I asked for my payment, I was threatened with dire consequences,” he told the police.

According to the two sculptors, Rajkiya Nirman Nigam contractors and engineers made a lot of money by sub-letting contracts for elephant statues and duped the sculptors of their money.

“These contractors and engineers floated firms almost overnight and gave them these contracts. The firms obviously had no expertise in the business and the contracts were outsourced. The RNN contractor Aditya Agarwal called me in January 2011 and asked me to make elephant statues that were 196 inches in length, 170 inches tall and 72 inch in width and the official rate for this was Rs 48 lakh per elephant.

“The contractor, obviously, kept the money to himself and paid me less” he told reporters.

Meanwhile, Mr Agarwal told police that an order for 60 elephants had been placed for the Noida Park but when controversy erupted over the park, Mayawati hurriedly inaugurated it with merely 20 elephant statues.

He said that he was forced to delay payments to the sculptors since his own payments had been held up.