Hyderabad-based firm Navayuga Engineering Company Ltd (NEC), which is constructing the Silkyara Barkot tunnel in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi, a portion of which collapsed in November last year, purchased electoral bonds worth ₹55 crore and donated all the money to the BJP, the data released by the Election Commission revealed.

Navayuga Engineering, the flagship company of the Navayuga Group, purchased 55 electoral bonds of ₹1 crore each between April 19, 2019 and October 10, 2022, the ECI data revealed.

NEC, an engineering and core infrastructure company, was contracted to accomplish the Silkyara-Barkot tunnel project, which was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in 2018. The tunnel’s construction was to be completed in 2022, but its deadline was extended.

According to the company’s website, the firm has built several projects, including the Dhola-Sadia Bridge — the country’s longest river bridge — over the Brahmaputra river.

The Silkyara-Barkot tunnel is a single-tube tunnel divided into two inter-connected corridors by a partition wall, where each inter-connector corridor works as an escape passage for the other. The 4.5-km tunnel is part of the Centre’s 900 km Char Dham Yatra All Weather Road which aims to improve connectivity to the four holy pilgrimage sites.

A major accident took place in November 2023 on Diwali when a portion of the under-construction tunnel collapsed, and 41 workers got trapped under the rubble. After a rigorous rescue operation of over 400 hours, the trapped labourers were finally evacuated out of the tunnel on November 28.

The data came into the limelight after the Supreme Court directed State Bank of India (SBI), the designated lender for issuing the electoral bonds, to disclose all the details of the electoral bonds encashed by the political organisations. The top 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.

The electoral bond scheme was announced as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of efforts to bring transparency to political funding. Under the scheme, the name of the donor is known only to banks. Electoral bonds are encashed by an eligible political party only through a bank account with the authorised bank.

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