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Three arrests in Naharlagun have surfaced a payment-cycle vulnerability that senior contractors recognise immediately.
A PMGSY contractor owed more than Rs 17 crore on a Rural Works Department (RWD) road package was allegedly targeted by individuals offering to “clear” his pending bill for a fee.
Naharlagun Police, under Superintendent of Police Dr Nyelam Nega, registered Case No. 123/2025 under Section 318(4)/35 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and arrested Toluk Lombi, Dubi Ete and Rajesh Kumar Singh.
The accused allegedly demanded Rs 2.40 crore, citing Singh’s claimed proximity to the central government, and handed the contractor a letter stating his bill had been cleared.
The fraud surfaced only when the contractor verified the document at the Chief Engineer, RWD office and found it fabricated.
For the contractor, the arithmetic is unforgiving. Rs 17 crore in pending receivables is working capital that cannot fund mobilization, materials or labour.
That liquidity gap is precisely what the alleged facilitation network monetized — selling access to a payment system the contractor could not expedite alone.
Singh’s attempt to quash the FIR was rejected by the court on August 13, enabling his arrest in Guwahati on August 25 and six days of police custody.
That sequence signals that payment-linked fraud on public works is being treated as a substantive offence rather than a private dispute.
PMGSY packages under RWD in Arunachal Pradesh carry large completion-linked receivables. Any delay between measurement, certification and disbursement creates arbitrage for intermediaries.
Contractors with thin balance sheets face two exposures: the original payment delay and a secondary fraud risk from individuals claiming influence over the same disbursement chain.
Dr Nega’s advisory to verify facts with the concerned department is operationally sound but shifts the burden to the contractor.
The durable fix lies upstream:
- Transparent bill-tracking
- Faster RWD payment cycles
- Clear escalation channels that strip the perceived value of “facilitation”
Until then, every delayed crore in the PMGSY pipeline remains a target.
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