Patna, Mar 20 (PTI) Bihar Police's Economic Offences Unit (EOU) has constituted a dedicated team to monitor irregularities in the tender process across all government departments, a senior official said on Friday.

The five-member team, headed by EOU SP Pankaj Kumar, includes a DSP and inspectors.

Talking to reporters, Kumar said, "The unit has constituted a team to monitor irregularities in tender invitations and allotments across all departments, based on complaints received from the public and other sources." He said the team was formed about a fortnight ago.

During the briefing, the SP also outlined actions taken by the EOU over the past three months.

"Sarfaraz Shahid, the main accused in connection with the paper leak of examinations conducted by SCERT for classes 3 to 8, was arrested in January," he said.

Kumar highlighted that a disproportionate assets (DA) case was registered against the executive engineer of North Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited, Manoj Rajak, on March 16.

"Preliminary investigation revealed assets 62.66 per cent in excess of his known sources of income. Searches conducted at seven locations led to recovery of land documents, jewellery, bank accounts and evidence of properties in Nepal. Further investigation is underway," he said.

Under the PMLA, the EOU has referred two cases to the ED in the last three months, which involve the confiscation of assets worth approximately Rs 21 crore, the SP said.

He said that a case of illegal mining was registered recently, which involved the collusion of officials from the mining department in 17 districts with license holders.

"They tampered with the department's mining software portal and bypassed OTP authentication and capping limits. This caused a loss of approximately Rs 350 crore to the department," the SP added.

Kumar also highlighted the EOU's action in cases related to GST embezzlement and fraud in the cooperative sector, banks and post offices over the last three months. PTI SUK MNB

Tender irregularities monitored by a dedicated EOU team investigating collusion, portal manipulation and related financial offences. A specialised EOU team has been formed to monitor and investigate tender irregularities across government departments, targeting collusion, manipulation of departmental portals and bypassing of procurement safeguards, with particular attention to illegal mining schemes involving departmental officials. Concurrently, the EOU has advanced financial crime probes including an examination paper leak, an investigation into disproportionate assets with cross border property evidence, PMLA referrals to the enforcement agency for asset confiscation review, and inquiries into GST evasion and fraud in cooperatives, banks and post offices.