Assam (The Stellar News): Television journalists grabbed huge amount of that was originally meant for Data Entry Operators (DEOs) for NRC updation process. This incident came to light when second FIR was lodged by Hitesh Dev Sarma, NRC State Coordinator who is retiring on July 31, with Assam government vigilance and anti-corruption wing and accused former State NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela of having an indulgence in corruption and money laundering case while updating NRC 1951 in Assam in 2014.
Dev Sarma, also an IAS officer, claims in his complaint that the engaged system integrator (Wipro Limited) with other persons indulged in corruption while updating the 1951 NRC in Assam, the process began in 2014 under supervision of the country’s apex court. In his complaint on 13 June 2022, Dev Sarma asserted that a huge financial mismanagement had taken place during Hajela’s tenure as the NRC head. For conducting the NRC updation process, Wipro (system integrator) was given the task of supplying data entry operators (DEOs). It was not permitted to subcontract any activities related to system design & development, deployment and enhancement of NRC software solution, data centre operation, etc. But Wipro engaged sub-contractors for providing data entry operators without any prior approval from the appropriate authority.
From the office record, it was found that the then State coordinator was aware of the fact that the sub-contractors were being used to gather DEOs, though he did not officially approve the particular proposal, said Dev Sarma in his complaint. The Wipro was paid Rupees 14,500 to 17,500 per month per DEO (by the NRC authority), but ‘the DEOs got only Rs 5,500 to 9,100 per month’ during the years (2015 to 2019), added Dev Sarma asserting that the DEOs were denied even the least amount as per the country’s minimum wage act. Some DEOs even came to the streets demanding their due amounts. They claimed that out of 7000 young workers, a large number of DEOs were deprived of their money, where the entire NRC updation process in Assam cost Rs 1,600 crore which was paid by the government authority.
The DEOs also approached the State labour commissioner office with demands for their legal and regular payments. They also suspected some non-existent DEOs, who were also shown as paid. A source in the State NRC office, informed that at least three editor-journalists of Assamese satellite news channels were also beneficiaries to the financial irregularities. Those media persons took sub-contracts to supply DEOs and got a sizable percentage of money. It is understood that the large volume of money, meant for DEOs, were fraudulently grabbed by those television anchor-journalists. Needless to mention that, during the period of NRC updating process, those television presenters shamelessly projected Hajela as a hero.
Accountant General of Assam in a provisional audit report observed that ‘the difference of margin ranged from 45.59 to 64.27 percent was excessively high and audit assessed that undue benefit of Rs 155.83 crore was allowed to SI/labour contractor after allowing 10 percent reasonable profit margin to the contractor’. Describing the undue benefit to the tune of Rs 155.83 crore, Dev Sarma asserted in his FIR that it’s reasonable to suspect that kickbacks and money laundering must have occurred in the process. The provisional audit report also identified an ‘avoidable expenditure to the tune of Rs 10.73 crore’ in connection with the engagement of third-party monitoring consultants. As per the amended delegation of financial power rules, for the expenditure of more than Rs five crore, the then State coordinator should have obtained an approval from the empowered committee, headed by the chief secretary, or from the Registrar General of India.
But the then State coordinator engaged the consultants without taking approval from the concerned authority, added it. Citing the same audit report, where it observed that ‘entire expenditure of Rs 10.73 crore made against the engagement of consultants was unjustified and avoidable which resulted in extra burden to the government exchequer and undue benefit to the SI (Wipro) to that extent’, Dev Sarma claimed that a large volume of government money was siphoned off in a fraudulent manner. Now will it be possible to identify those scamster editors? If one trusts in Dev Sarma, it’s yes. He mentioned that one Proloy Seal worked as a middleman in the entire process. Seal was neither an employee of the State coordinator’s office nor a contractor engaged by it. But his presence was always seen in the office. In reality he was the key person in managing all the kickbacks, said Dev Sarma. He argued that a detailed investigation into the transactions and accounts/balance sheets of the concerned persons would prove the money laundering and finally it would help in identifying corrupt individuals including those television editors.
