Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Ajit Pawar’s brazen reinstatement marks a new low in Indian public life

Ajit Pawar’s brazen reinstatement marks a new low in Indian public life:

Indian public life

Corruption has become so pervasive that our outrage lasts for not more than a day.
Shoma Chaudhury
Shoma Chaudhury
December 18, 2012, Issue 51 Volume 9
PERHAPS THICK skin is a pre-requisite for Indian life. To live without the shield of some moral blindness — to chafe too keenly at what is, against the ideal of what should be — would be to invite madness on oneself. There is much that is wrong with India: one learns to make one’s peace. But even by the opaque standards of Indian public life, the brazen reinstatement of Ajit Pawar last week as Maharashtra deputy chief minister marks a new low. What is this a sign of? Collective amnesia? Disinterest? Helplessness? Do we no longer deserve even the pretence of an investigation? Not even the comfort of half-baked recompense?
By all accounts, Pawar has presided over an unconscionable scam. From 1999 to 2009, while he was the water resources minister, Maharashtra spent a whopping Rs 70,000 crore on irrigation projects. This is a state prone to drought; its despairing farmers make international headlines. Spent well, the money could have created an artery of lifelines. Instead, more than half of it has been siphoned off. Worse, the money has not just lined an array of political pockets; the work has simply not been done. Ten years, Rs 70,000 crore squandered and the enhanced irrigation potential of the state is just 0.01 percent. Surely this is sufficiently sharp to pierce the hide? Elicit some sustained outrage? Force some accountability?
Over this entire decade, as projects lay derelict or shoddily done, instead of getting them fixed, Pawar kept sanctioning scores of new projects at wildly escalated costs — often to the same contractors. A project budgeted at Rs 60 crore would suddenly be rebudgeted at Rs 1,322 crore. Projects worth Rs 1,000 crore would mysteriously shoot to Rs 10,000 crore. In 2009, in a span of just three months, 32 project costs were escalated by almost Rs 18,000 crore. Apparently Pawar personally signed every tender worth more than Rs 1 crore. Many lakh hectares of land was supposed to benefit; not an inch did.
Finally, earlier this year, disgusted beyond the limits of the Indian carapace perhaps, chief engineer Vijay Pandhare — who has worked with the irrigation department for 30 years — wrote a letter to the governor, chief minister and principal secretary detailing the astronomical misuse of public money and accusing Pawar of architecting this ‘irrigation rush’ only so he could earn commissions from private contractors. It is difficult to dismiss this accusation. Pawar not only sanctioned the tenders personally, he actively rapped any officer who tried to flag the scam.
Many media houses — Loksatta, TEHELKA itself — have documented the scam in stark detail. But none of this seems to have rocked the status quo enough. Congress Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan famously promised a “white paper” but the wily Pawar resigned in advance and precipitated a political crisis. Predictably — depressingly — the “white paper” morphed into a “whitewash”. The Congress caved in and gave its ally (NCP) a clean chit. Now, despite several petitions pending in the courts, Pawar has triumphantly reinstated himself back as deputy CM. (For the backroom politics on this, read Irrigation Scam Fails to Drown Ajit Pawar)
The story of this scam encapsulates the despair of contemporary Indian public life. All of it is known; all of it has been told before. Yet, nothing happens. The only resistance left is to tell it again. But who can take up the gauntlet? In this case, Pawar is not alone in the cesspit: the Congress and BJP-Shiv Sena combine are wading there too, caught in a symbiotic embrace. So who will force the issue to its logical end?
Corruption in India is so pervasive now, our responses have become inadequate. Increasingly, our “outrage” lasts no more than a day. Each day brings new baubles to focus our rage on. The guilty rely on that distraction. They understand the headline will change.
But Pawar’s reinduction is a particularly rude alarm. Like the National Rural Health Mission scam in Uttar Pradesh, the irrigation scam is no ordinary corruption. It is not just about public money stolen: it is about even baseline work not being done. Rs 70,000 crore has been spent. In return, one has a ghost network of absent dams and canals. How can a scam of this scale lie exposed and evoke absolutely no response from any institution?
In a self-respecting democracy, Pawar would not have been allowed to resume office with such grievous allegations pending against him. But our selective outrage will no longer suffice to ensure this. We need to rediscover the comfort of a country that follows due process.
Shoma Chaudhury is Managing Editor, Tehelka.shoma@tehelka.com

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

The full Ponty: A rivetting story of naked greed - Rediff.com India News - Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

The full Ponty: A rivetting story of naked greed - Rediff.com India News:

The full Ponty: A rivetting story of naked greed

November 26, 2012 17:40 IST
How did a smalltimer from the interiors of Uttar Pradesh [ Images ] come to head a multi-crore business empire with interests spanning liquor trade to paper mills and real estate? Sharat Pradhan unravels the Ponty Chadha saga that outdoes any Bollywood potboiler
Uttar Pradesh may have been notorious for its criminalisation of politics, its nexus between criminals and politicians an open secret, yet politicians maintained their liaisons with outlaws only on the sly.
But Gurdeep Singh Chadha -- better known as Ponty Chadha -- changed the rules of the game.
Brazen to the core, he built his empire on the strength of his open connections with corrupt politicians and bureaucrats of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand [ Images ] -- where his undue influence cut across political parties and dispensations.
His death in the most bizarre circumstances has left a void, not just for his family but for all unscrupulous politicians and bureaucrats who had a stake in the giant business empire of a man who was a master at multiplying money almost overnight.
At least a dozen prominent politicians of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, together with an equal number of Indian Administrative Service officers from the two states, were believed to have invested their ill-gotten wealth in Ponty's companies.
And their biggest worry now is to retrieve that money from a family that is still trying to come to grips with the tragedy of losing the pater familias, as well as his brother Hardeep, in an internecine battle.
If rules were framed, twisted or turned for the sake of Ponty Chadha, it was not without the patronage of successive chief ministers, ministers and top bureaucrats who danced to his tune in return for the obvious war-chest. No wonder, then, that it was Ponty who would hand-pick officials to man the ministries and departments that impacted his business interests: key ones like excise, mining, mother and child nutrition, sugar industries and infrastructure .
Uttarakhand Minority Commission chairman Sukhdev Singh Namdhari, who was the man  beside Ponty during the bloody gunbattle at the Delhi [ Images ] farmhouse where he and his brother met their end,  was known to have been appointed at the behest of Ponty by the Bharatiya Janata Party [ Images ] government headed by Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' -- completely ignoring his criminal antecedents.
Pokhriyal's successor Vijay Bahuguna (the current Congress chief minister) shut his eye to the truth and let Namdhari continue in the post. Only after the latter's true colours were exposed that Bahuguna tried to wash his hands of the controversy by divesting the man of the important charge.
Significantly, the Delhi police has discovered that it was Namdhari's bullet which killed Ponty's brother Hardeep.
Ponty's skills lay in monopolising every business where he smelt the potential for quick and manifold  returns. Thus, once he established his exclusive sway over the liquor trade across UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab [ Images ] and Haryana, he chose to enter a completely diverse business like supply of 'panjeeri' (ready-to-eat whole wheat food supplement) for distribution to poor children in government schools.
He found UP the ideal ground for his exploits, not merely because of the easy pliability of the bureaucracy but also because of the enormous potential given the state's size.
The 55-year-old Ponty, who had lost the use of one arm as also two fingers of his other arm in an accident years ago, never allowed his handicap to come in the way. Rather he displayed a rare business acumen for realising the financial potential of an innocuous item like 'panjeeri' that today touches a whopping figure of Rs 9000 crores  -- incredibly close to UP's  liquor trade worth about Rs 12,000 crores.
No change of guard at the top made a difference to Ponty's clout. If he could get the Rajnath Singh-headed BJP government in 2000-02 to do away with the traditional excise policy for liquor trade in UP, which he once again got re-drafted by Mulayam Singh Yadav [ Images ] in 2005, he could ensure continuity of the same policy even under a  poles-apart Mayawati [ Images ] regime. 
While he thrived under different political dispensations, his business grew by leaps and bounds under Mayawati, when he made inroads into new areas like sugar industries and infrastructure. In fact, Mayawati's policy to privatise sugar mills was alleged to have been tailor-made for Ponty. Less than two months after assuming office, the BSP government initiated a process of disinvesting 11 operating sugar mills of th eUP Sugar Corporation in the end of June 2007.
The Comptroller and Auditor General had highlighted a large number of anomalies and discrepancies in the whole disinvestment process of the state-owned sugar mills. These included the arbitrary fixation of expected price, undervaluation of land and buildings of the sugar mills by advisors, and non-inclusion of a performance guarantee clause in the sale deed or the agreement to sale to ensure that the units would be run only as sugar mill.
This resulted in a loss of Rs 539.92 crore to the UP Sugar Corporation, indicated the CAG report.
Wave Industries, owned by Ponty Chadha, was indicted by the CAG. The auditors, on examining the documents submitted by two bidders -- wave Industries and PBS Foods Pvt Ltd (both owned by Ponty) -- detected that the demand drafts submitted by them for purchasing tender forms contained the same date and consecutive serial numbers.
An upright UP bureaucrat, who had seen Ponty's modus operandi from close quarters during both the Mayawati and Mulayam regimes, recalls how policies were planned and framed at the behest of the liquor baron. "Ponty Chadha had emerged like a super government who could own anything that he could lay his hands on," he told rediff.com on the condition of anonymity.
"The Mayawati government went to the extent of doling out huge chunks of prime land along National Highway 24 (between Delhi and Lucknow [ Images ]), where he carved out two prime Noida sectors under the banner of 'Wave City', from which he was reaping a rich harvest," the official added.
It came as no surprise to anyone when the present Akhilesh Yadav government decided to give away the contract for the supply of Rs 9000- crore worth of 'panjeeri' to none else than Ponty's company. The "deal" came to light after a writ petition was moved before the Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court, highlighting how the Samajwadi Party government had violated the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court for issuing contracts for supply of 'panjeeri'. 
The petitioner -- a company that was excluded from the bidding process -- accused the UP government of laying down "tailor-made" pre-conditions to suit Chadha's firms and to disqualify all other bidders.
'The eligibility criterion laid down by the UP government, to allow only UP-based companies with a minimum annual turnover of Rs 25 crores to participate in the tender process was evidently intended to favour a particular cartel of companies, that were already providing the food supplements since 2005,' the petitioner had pointed out.
The petitioner also termed these conditions as 'violative' of an earlier order of the Supreme Court, that preference be given to NGOs and women's self-help groups.
Ponty's meteoric rise had completely overshadowed his humble beginnings. His father Kulwant Singh started out by selling fried fish from a hand-cart parked outside a country-liquor shop in Peeru-Madara town between Ramnagar and Moradabad. From such humble beginnings Ponty went on to reach dizzying heights -- regardless of the means he chose to achieve his ends.
Way back in the 'eighties, a Garhwal-based forthright journalist, Umesh Dobhal, was brutally done to death for running a campaign against the clandestine sale of liquor in the then prohibition-bound UP hills. Ponty was accused of adulterating a popular ayurvedic tonic with alcohol to skirt the prohibition laws and make a quick buck.
Being a product of the unholy nexus between unscrupulous businessmen, dishonest  politicians and corrupt bureaucrats, Ponty got away with murder and continued to scale new heights.
Lately, with an obvious eye on gaining social respectability, he sought to make forays into the education sector by launching an impressive public school in Noida some three years ago. To top it all, he managed to rope in a retired top bureaucrat -- widely known for his integrity -- to head the institution's governing body, together with a legal luminary and a prominent media personality.
"We have never faced any interference in the running of the school, which is doing a highly commendable job by also providing free services to some 400 physically challenged children," asserted a top functionary of the institution on being asked if he knew the antecedents of the man whose organisation he had lent his credentials to.
Sure enough, Ponty knew how to extend his credibility while simultaneously expanding  his clout. However, it was his insatiable craving for wealth and more wealth that eventually brought about his nemesis.

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
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Monday, September 17, 2012

Deduct bank guarantee of mine given to Hindalco, Tatapower: IMG - NDTVProfit.com

Deduct bank guarantee of mine given to Hindalco, Tatapower: IMG - NDTVProfit.com:

Deduct bank guarantee of mine given to Hindalco, Tatapower: IMG

Press Trust of India | Updated On: September 17, 2012 21:43 (IST)

More FromCorporates



Moving ahead with action against erring coal block allottees, the government today decided to deallocate one more mine and deduct bank guarantees of two others even as the ministerial panel recommended forfeiture of bank guarantee of a block allotted to Hindalco and Tata Power.

The decision to deallocate Gourangdih ABC coal block, jointly given to JSW Steel, a company owned by Sajjan Jindal, brother of Congress MP Naveen Jindal and Himachal EMTA was taken on the recommendation of the Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG).

The panel is scrutinising 29 out of 58 cases that were served show cause notices for non-development of mines during prescribed timeline.

"I have approved the IMG's recommendations given on Friday and will take a call on others," Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said.

The IMG, on Friday had recommended deallocation of the Gourangdih ABC mine, given jointly to JSW Steel and Himachal EMTA, in 2009, having an extractable reserve of 61.54 million tonnes (MT).
With this the total number of blocks approved for deallocation has gone up to five out of total seven recommended by the IMG so far. Government has also approved deducting bank guarantee (BG) in case of five mines out of total eight recommended by the IMG so far.

Meanwhile, the panel decided to recommend deduction of bank guarantee in the case of a mine jointly allotted to Aditya Birla Group's flagship firm Hindalco and Tata Power due to delays in development of the block.

"The IMG today recommended deduction of bank guarantee of Tubed coal block in Jharkhand, allotted to Hindalco and Tata Power in August 2007," an official source told PTI.

The panel could take up only Tubed block for scrutiny today and would meet again tomorrow to scrutinise another six of seven cases, which failed to adhere to the timeframe for developing the mines given to them, sources said.
Story first published on: September 17, 2012 21:40 (IST)

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Coal scandal: CBI says despite admitting to lies, firm went unpunished | NDTV.com

Coal scandal: CBI says despite admitting to lies, firm went unpunished | NDTV.com:
New Delhi: The CBI, which is investigating the giant coal scam, today questioned entrepreneur Arvind Jayaswal, Director AMR Iron and Steel Private Limited, whose company is closely linked to Congress MP Vijay Darda - his son, Devendra, is listed as a director. 
 
In its FIR or formal complaint , the CBI says  says that AMR's directors lied about crucial information in their application for coal blocks-  they inflated the net worth of AMR and did not disclose that the company had already been given five coal blocks. The CBI says that this information was shared later with the junior minister for Coal, but an inquiry did not follow.  Santosh Bagrodia of the Congress was the Minister of State for Coal at the time, and the CBI's statement indicts him without naming him.

AMR and its directors are among five firms -three of them owned by the Jayaswals - who have been accused by the CBI of deliberately misleading the government with incorrect information to corner coal fields.  The Jayaswal family was given ten coal blocks for a maze of companies.  .

The case against AMR relates to coal fields it got in 2008 in Bander in Maharashtra. The  investigating agency says that in September 2008, representatives of AMR met with the Minister of State for Coal and allegedly admitted that they had already been give coal fields.  The CBI says in its complaint that "Public servants in the ministry of coal in pursuance of criminal conspiracy, willfully did not take the enquiry to its logical conclusion, thus allowing undue advantage to AMR Iron & Steel."
 
The CBI has already said that it plans to question bureaucrats who colluded with companies to help them corner coal blocks illegitimately.

While his son, Devendra, is listed in the FIR against AMR Iron and Steel, Congress MP Vijay Darda and his brother  Rajendra who is Maharashtra's Education Minister, have been named in another case of cheating and conspiracy by the CBI --  that of  JLD Yavatmal Energy Limited,  co-owned by the Jayaswals, which bagged the Fatehpur East Coal Block in Chattisgarh.   Mr Darda, who is to be questioned soon, has refuted all allegations against him.

Several Jayaswal companies are in the dock now for misreporting info in their applications, and for failing to develop coal blocks that they were assigned. An inter-ministerial group is examining 58 companies, half of them privately-owned, for failing to hit the milestones laid out in their contracts for the coal fields that they were assigned.
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Friday, August 10, 2012

Why Dr Samant quits top posts of KIIT Deemed University? - India News Diary

Why Dr Samant quits top posts of KIIT Deemed University? - India News Diary:

By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: With entire KIIT Deemed University under scanner of CBI and it sister concern Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences under close watch of Medical Council of India, founder secretary of the leading educational institution Dr Achyuta Samant stepped down from his post raising eyebrows.
Dr Samanta attributed his resignation from top posts of KIIT Empire as part of his aim to play a bigger role in education and social sector in national level.KIIT society has accepted his resignation letters as per media reports.
Dr Samant had been heading KIIT since last 20 years.  The resignation of Dr Samanta came few months after the MCI debarred KIMS for MBBS admission for two years from 2012-13-2013-14 following a CBI charge sheet.
But defying, sources said, KIMS reportedly carried out MBBS admission despite a ban imposed by MCI. MBBS students are paying around 27 to 28 lakh for 9 semesters’ examinations and Rs 2.60 lakh per semester.
As Dr Samant is a member in University Grant Commission, he faced tough time because his pending CBI against KIIT.
The MCI website , which clearly mentioned that KIMS has been debarred from MBBS admission for the year 2012-13, 2013-14 but in reality, admission completed in KIMS.
Sources said that students, who qualified KIIT Medical Exam-2012 entrance had been allowing for admission despite ban by MCI.Seven doctors of KIMS, a sister concern of KIIT caught red handed by CBI. They were saving KIIT from the clutches of MCI.
Seven posed them as KIIT doctors to save Dr Samant from MCI. CBI sources informed that the government medicos, who were suspended by Naveen Patnaik following the allegation paid hefty amounts to masquerade as KIM’s doctors by Dr Samanta to save disqualification from MCI
On January 30 CBI charge sheeted four senior functionaries of KIMS – Bhagabati Charan Das (dean-cum-principal), Achyuta Samanta (former secretary), Debasish Debata (assistant personnel officer) and Dilip Kumar Panda (deputy chief executive officer) – for resorting to “fraudulent” practice to impress the MCI squad, which inspected the institute on March 5, 2010.
As per reports, four KIMS functionaries were charge sheeted under sections 120 (B), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using forged documents as genuine) and 176 IPC. On November 11, 2010, CBI registered a case against KIM’s authorities following allegations of irregularities.

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Resume fraud weighs on Indian IT industry, one in five CVs contain fake information - The Economic Times

Resume fraud weighs on Indian IT industry, one in five CVs contain fake information - The Economic Times:
8 AUG, 2012, 01.20AM IST, INDU NANDAKUMAR & HARSIMRAN JULKA,ET BUREAU 

Resume fraud weighs on Indian IT industry, one in five CVs contain fake information

Read more on »Wipro|resume fraud|Nasscom|KPMG|IT Industry|Infosys|IBM
BANGALORE/NEW DELHI: Last month, R Nandan, a 33-year-old employee of IBM, was discovered to have used his wife's academic credentials to get his Rs 24-lakh-a-year job, putting the spotlight on rampantresume fraud faced by India's $100-billion informationtechnology services sector.
Had it not been for falling out with his wife, Nandan's fraud may never have been exposed. Every year, despite the IT industry's stated resolve to stamp out the problem of applicants lying about their academic qualifications and work experience, thousands like Nandan manage to sneak in. This is raising questions about whether companies are serious about tackling an issue which has the potential to harm India's reputation as the world's preferred location for outsourcingtechnology services.

One in every five CVs floating in the Indian IT industry is suspect, industry insiders and hiring experts say.

"At any given point in time, up to 10 per cent of the existing workforce in companies would be caught for fabricating or exaggerating their qualifications if verification tests are conducted," said Aditya Mishra, head of staffing business at Ma Foi Randstad, a leading HR services company in India.

HR experts say that the issue of resume fraud is very closely related to the integrity of the employees and their employer, and such instances would definitely have an impact on India's image.

"If companies don't get their act together on this, their reputation will be impacted. It speaks about their integrity," said Ganesh Shermon, partner and country head for human capital advisory services at KPMG.



The industry's inability to stop candidates who seek to game the system has partly got to do with lack of firm commitment from companies to follow uniform practices across the industry. "Honestly, most IT firms don't care; they just terminate these employees and forget about it. Unless employees, who fake their credentials, are taken to the police, this issue will never come to an end," a senior executive of another Bangalore-based IT company said, on condition of anonymity.

Continued high prevalence of resume fraud also raises questions about the efficacy of National Skills Registry, an initiative that industry body Nasscom started over five years ago as a long-term solution to the problem. As many as 118 large companies are members of the registry, which currently has a database of 1.1 million candidates, according to Nasscom. Of this, nearly 8 million candidate profiles have been vetted, so far, with the help of some 17 third-party background verification agencies.

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