Vigilance freezes payments to Happy Kar’s contractor wife

Bhubaneswar: The Vigilance department has ordered the public health department (PHD) to stop payments to contractor Srabani Kar, wife of Himanshu (Happy) Kar, the aide of arrested former assistant director of Factories & Boilers, who had managed to obtain a differently-abled contractor's license for his wife fraudulently.

Seeking details of all the contracts awarded to the Srabani Kar in a letter to the Engineer in Chief (Public Health, Urban), the Vigilance department has asked the former to “Stop payment of the pending bills of the executed works done by Srabani Kar. The payment shall not be made without Vigilance clearance.”

Notably, the state investigating wing is now investigating how Srabani was given tenders worth crores of rupees despite having only a Class-C contractor license.

The Crime Branch probe revealed that Himanshu, who started taking up construction work in 2009 through the contract license in the name of his wife Srabani Kar issued in 2009, has been awarded tenders worth over Rs 10 crore till 2015. All construction work has been taken up by BN Constructions, a construction company in the name of his wife. As per the Income Tax returns filed by her, Srabani has earned Rs 3.5 crore in 2014-15.