Even as the arrest of TDP national president N. Chandrababu Naidu in the alleged skill development corporation scam has triggered a debate over the law taking its course versus political vendetta, the prime task before the Economics Offence Wing (EOW) of the Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department (AP-CID) is to establish that the former Chief Minister had planned to get the alleged misappropriated funds for himself through shell companies.
It is alleged that Mr. Naidu had misappropriated about ₹371 crore..
According to the remand report and other documents pertaining to the case accessed by The Hindu from the AP-CID, the end-use of the money that was allegedly drawn in cash and parked with the accused including Vikas Vinayak Khanvelkar, Managing Director of Pune-based DesignTech and others are required to be ascertained.
“Mr. Naidu has to be confronted with Soumyadri Shekhar Bose also known as Suman Bose, the then Managing Director of Siemens Industry Software (India) Private Limited, Khanvelkar, the Directors of the shell companies and other principal co-conspirators such as Sanjay Daga (DesignTech), Ghanta Subba Rao, Dr. K. Lakshminarayana and others for eliciting further details about their modus operandi,” said the AP-CID.
The Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation (APSSDC) was formed by Mr. Naidu on September 10, 2014 allegedly without getting approval of the State Cabinet. He also appointed G. Subbarao and K. Lakshminarayana, IAS (retired) as the MD & CEO and Director for the APSSDC respectively. The APSSDC was kept under the control of the Higher Education Department allegedly with an intention to misappropriate the funds on the pretext of the skill development project through then former Minister K. Atchannaidu, who is now TDP Andhra Pradesh unit president and others. They allegedly colluded with the Siemens and DesignTech companies.
Mr. Naidu appointed G. Subba Rao as an Ex-officio Secretary of the Higher Education Department on October 7,2014 allegedly to execute the plan to misappropriate funds.
All this exercise was allegedly initiated by Mr. Naidu after having a meeting on the skill development project with Sanjay Daga through TDP leader Illendula Ramesh.
Allegedly on the instructions of Mr. Naidu, Subba Rao colluded with other accused and prepared the cost estimate for the Siemens Project without any base, bills, quotations, reasonable explanation of the cost, detailed project report and others and the same was submitted as a draft resolution as table item in the State Cabinet meeting on February 16, 2015.
The TDP government then approved the Skill Development Project as a special item for the establishment of six clusters in the State at a cost of ₹546.84 crore for each cluster with 90% contribution from M/s DesignTech and M/s Siemens and the rest (10%) contribution by the State government in two years. The project was approved by the State Cabinet allegedly on the instructions of Mr. Naidu, without verifying the authenticity and cost estimation of the project and without following the tender process.
Further, Mr. Naidu created Skill Development Entrepreneurship and Innovation Department (SDE&I) to achieve the objective of skill development. Allegedly to create a green channel and to avoid the intervention of Principal Secretary (Higher Education) on the Siemens project, Mr. Naidu brought the APSSDC under the SDE&I Department and got direct access of the file movement.
Subba Rao was allegedly appointed Secretary of the SDE&I even before it was formed. After that, the Cabinet approved a proposal to sanction ₹370.78 crore towards the 10% contribution of the government.
The investigation so far has established that the total cost of the project excluding taxes was falsely projected as ₹3,281 crore. The G.O. Ms. No. 4 released on June 30, 2015 by SDE&I Department clearly mentioned the contribution of the technology partners (90%) and government (10%). But in reality, the government intentionally omitted the contribution of 90% by the technology partners and did official favour to the individuals, the AP-CID officials said.
The AP-CID also unearthed the details in various note files related to different G.O.s pertaining to the case. At the same time, it found that a note file related to G.O. Ms. 4 was missing through which the money was released.
