NEW DELHI: Navayuga Engineering Company Ltd (NEC), which is constructing the Silkyara-Barkot tunnel in Uttarakhand, a portion of which collapsed last year, purchased ₹ 55 crore worth of electoral bonds and donated the entire amount to the saffron BJP, as per data released by the Election Commission.
Under the scheme, the name of the donor was known only to banks. Electoral bonds are encashed by an eligible political party only through a bank account with the authorised bank. However, the Supreme Court in February directed State Bank of India, which was the designated lender for issuing these bonds, to disclose details of each electoral bond encased by political parties.
While directing SBI, the Supreme Court also annulled the electoral bonds scheme for political funding, saying it violates the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression and the right to information
It is the same engineering company that was most recently in the news when the Silkyara-Barkot tunnel collapsed in Uttarakhand, trapping 41 labourers for 16 days, till they were pulled out manually by rat-miners. The Silkyara tunnel is part of the Modi government’s Char Dham all-weather accessibility project. The 4.5-km tunnel project in Uttarakhand, which is part of the Centre’s 900-km Char Dham Yatra All Weather Road, aims to improve connectivity to the four pilgrimage sites. A query sent to Navayuga Engineering did not elicit any response. A total of 41 workers were trapped after a portion of the under-construction tunnel collapsed on November 12, 2023. The workers were rescued on November 28.
The Silkyara-Barkot tunnel project – cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) in 2018 – was to be completed in 2022, but its deadline has been extended.NEC purchased 55 electoral bonds of ₹ 1 crore each between April 19, 2019 and October 10, 2022.
In mid-2020, Navayuga was also granted the government’s ambitious Rishikesh-Karnaprayag rail link project. It is responsible for many large and prestigious projects, including bridges over the Ganga, the Quazigund to Banihal Highway project to ensure all-weather connectivity to north Kashmir through Pir Panjal Pass, as per its website. It has also built the Dhola-Sadia Bridge, over the Brahmaputra river, which Prime Minister Naredra Modi inaugurated in 2017.
It was also among those responsible for work on the Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi Expressway, whose first phase of the expressway was inaugurated by Modi in December 2022. Hyderabad based Navayuga Engineering, the flagship company of the Navayuga Group, is an engineering and core infrastructure company, according to information posted on the company’s website.The company said it has constructed the Dhola-Sadia Bridge – the country’s longest river bridge – over the Brahmaputra river, spanning a total of 9.15 km.
NEC also claimed that it was entrusted with the responsibility of constructing the Polavaram Project by the Andhra Pradesh government. As per the NEC’s website, it is responsible for many iconic projects, including bridges over the Ganga and the Quazigund to Banihal Highway project to ensure all-weather connectivity to north Kashmir through Pir Panjal Pas, a road prone to closure due to severe weather conditions.
An FIR was registered against the sub-contractors of Navayuga Engineering Company Limited and VSL Private Limited, the agencies “hired to construct Package 16 of Samruddhi Expressway,” reported the Indian Express.
Navayuga, a multi-crore company, found itself in the crosshairs of the Jagan Mohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh when power changed hands from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to Reddy’s YSR Congress Party in 2019.
The Jagan regime seemed to view Navayuga as ‘pro-TDP’ and close to its arch rival, Chandrababu Naidu.Several coveted projects cornered by Navayuga in Andhra Pradesh during the TDP era were suddenly taken away from it by the new state government.
On October 26, 2018, a 20-member team of income tax officials from New Delhi zeroed onto Navayuga. They swooped down on multiple offices of the conglomerate across the state, accusing it of violating income tax rules and also laundering money.. The electoral bond scheme was announced by then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget speech of 2017-18, pitching it as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of efforts to bring transparency to political funding.

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