STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: The NGO named Assam Public Works (APW) has urged Wipro Technologies chairman Azim Premji to "look into disturbing reports" regarding about the company's involvement in misappropriating a huge amount of public money during updation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam with the help of the then NRC Directorate headed by Prateek Hajela.
In a recent letter to Premji, APW president Aabhijeet Sharma stated that
The organization is the main petitioner in the Writ Petition WP (C) 274/2009 (NRC) pending before the Supreme Court regarding the NRC updation and it has been closely monitoring the process of updation of the NRC in Assam since its inception.
"It is a known fact that Government of India is bearing the whole expenditure of the aforesaid process through NRC Directorate and as per information an amount of Rs 1600 crore approximately has already been released… Wipro Limited was entrusted as one of the prime software installation company by the then NRC Directorate headed by Hazela. Accordingly, M/s Wipro Limited worked as System Integrator in the process of updation of NRC for the state of Assam. M/s Wipro Limited also submitted bills from time to time for software installation and other system oriented works. Out of those, a bill was submitted by M/s Wipro Limited (System Integrator) amounting of Rs 1.27 crore for procurement of 'Oracle Standard One Edition' and 'Oracle Intelligence Server Enterprise Edition', the amount of which was paid during the month of February, 2017 to August, 2017. However, as per the ground report of National Institute of Smart Governance (NISG) submitted to Office of the Accountant General (Audit), Assam no such system was installed and used for the updation of NRC in Assam. The amount was cleared by the then NRC Directorate headed by Hazela by indulging in conspiracy and mutual understanding with M/s Wipro Limited as revealed from the report."
The letter further stated: "Another conspiracy which has come to light after the report of the Accountant General (Audit) is the submission of false generator-purchase bills. Those were shown to be installed after purchasing the same at 2,500 NSKs (NRC Seva Kendras). M/s Wipro Limited submitted a bill of 1-2 KVA sets of generators which were shown to be purchased and installed at 2,500 NSKs around the state of Assam, each amounting to Rs 93,964. Accordingly, an amount of Rs 34.76 crore was released to M/s Wipro Limited for installation of 3,700 generators. However, on field enquiry the auditor at some NSKs came to know that the generators were not purchased but hired and moreover, the market price of the hired generators are also not Rs 93,964 as submitted in the bills, but is Rs 35,000 each, which clearly indicates the involvement of the then NRC Directorate headed by Hazela with M/s Wipro Limited causing huge amount of loss to government exchequer."
Sharma also stated in the letter: "It is learnt that M/s Wipro was given the work order of providing a minimum 5,000 to a maximum of 9,000 Data Entry Operators for NRC updation by the then NRC Directorate headed by Hazela. But M/s Wipro outsourced the job violating service level agreement with the then NRC Directorate headed by Hazela. The WIPRO was paid Rs 14,500 by the then NRC authority whereas the Data Entry Operators were getting Rs 5,500 only. It is learnt that there was a corruption of Rs 155 crore, depriving the Data Entry Operators of their minimum wage as per an interim report by the Accountant General of Assam."
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