Another Trinamool leader arrested, this time for massive 7.46 Crore solar power fraud

Arambagh Municipality Chairman and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader, Swapan Nandi, has been arrested. The prominent municipal administrator was taken into police custody after a detailed investigation connected him to a multi-crore embezzlement operation involving the state's green energy initiative. Following widespread public scrutiny over illicit coal and sand extractions across the region, this fresh scandal directly implicates the ruling party leadership in the systemic siphoning of development capital earmarked under the prestigious Green City Mission project.

The focus of the criminal investigation centers around a fraudulent expenditure totaling 7,46,37,987. According to administrative records, these municipal funds were explicitly allocated to procure and install modern solar power panel grids across 44 local educational institutions, comprising 33 primary schools and 11 upper primary schools within the Arambagh municipal jurisdiction. The dual objective of the infrastructure blueprint was to achieve absolute green energy self-sufficiency for the regional schools while simultaneously boosting the municipal treasury's revenue reserves by routing and selling excess electrical generation back into the state's main power grid.

The underlying corruption scheme originally dates back to September 29, 2017, when the municipal body officially issued an open e-tender for the commercial solar energy project. Law enforcement officials allege that the beneficiary private contracting firm, P&T Construction, colluded directly with Chairman Nandi prior to the competitive bidding process to illegally guarantee their selection. Despite severe institutional delays and a near-total failure to deliver the physical infrastructure, municipal authorities prematurely issued fraudulent completion certificates, allowing P&T Construction to successfully draw and pocket the entire 7.46 crore Taka allocation without fulfilling their contractual obligations.

Although the massive financial discrepancies were formally flagged during a rigorous state audit in 2022, the political establishment at the time reportedly suppressed the findings and shielded the culprits from administrative penalties. The subsequent investigative audit revealed that a vast majority of the designated schools never received any solar equipment. Furthermore, in the handful of classrooms where rudimentary installations were actually carried out, poor craftsmanship and low-grade wiring caused severe structural damage to the school buildings, exposing young students to serious physical hazards and forcing the new administration to take decisive legal action.