₹20,000 crore Jal Jeevan ‘scam’: Ex-IAS Subodh Agarwal arrested after multi-city manhunt

In a major breakthrough in the alleged ₹20,000 crore Jal Jeevan Mission scam, Rajasthan’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on April 9 arrested absconding former IAS officer Subodh Agarwal from New Delhi following an extensive, multi-city search operation.

A Jaipur court had earlier issued a warrant against Agarwal, who had been evading arrest for a prolonged period.

According to ACB officials, the case revolves around alleged irregularities in the awarding of contracts under the Jal Jeevan Mission. Two private firms are accused of submitting forged completion certificates along with a letter of award purportedly issued by Indian Railway Construction International Limited (IRCON) to secure contracts in collusion with senior officials of Rajasthan’s Public Health Engineering Department (PHED).

The alleged fraud came to light when PHED’s Additional Chief Engineer sought verification of the certificates, which were reportedly declared fake by IRCON’s Bengaluru office. Investigators estimate that tenders worth around ₹960 crore were secured using these forged documents, resulting in corruption running into crores.

ACB Director General Govind Gupta said further irregularities were detected in the tendering process. He alleged that Agarwal, then Additional Chief Secretary of PHED, along with other officials, introduced a mandatory site visit certificate for projects exceeding ₹50 crore — a condition that violated established norms.

This requirement, Gupta noted, compromised bidder anonymity and distorted the tendering process, leading to unusually high premiums ranging between 30% and 40%. These inflated tenders, cumulatively valued at nearly ₹20,000 crore, were allegedly cleared by PHED officials.

Detailing the efforts to track Agarwal, Gupta said ACB teams pursued leads across multiple cities, contacting relatives, associates, and even scrutinising social media connections. “We came close to apprehending him twice, but he managed to slip away,” he said.

Officials confirmed that Agarwal was eventually arrested from a public place in Delhi. The search operation had involved 40 teams scanning over 100 locations across 21 cities, while more than 50 individuals — including family members, friends, domestic staff, and his driver — were questioned.

So far, 10 accused — including government engineers and officials such as Dinesh Goyal, K D Gupta, Subhanshu Dixit, Sushil Sharma, Niril Kumar, Vishal Saxena, Arun Srivastava, D K Gaud, Mahendra Prakash Soni, and private individual Mukesh Pathak — have been arrested and are currently in judicial custody.