Assam Public Works accuse Prateek Hajela of meddling with NRC; file case against him

GUWAHATI: Assam Public Works (APW) has lodged an FIR with Crime Investigation Department (CID) against former NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela.

In the FIR, APW accused the then coordinator of tampering with the NRC process. The allegations include disobeying the orders and directions of the Supreme Court of India, making a false document, causing forgery of public register and committing offenses under Cyber laws for altering/changing public records by misusing his position and power.

The Final List of NRC published on 31st August 2019.

Earlier, APW submitted a written message requesting a third-party audit of NRC Software, Application, and IT Infrastructure, and also petitioning a high-level investigation of corruption by the former Coordinator Prateek Hajela.

The nine-page written note stated that the corruption was done in employing for Data Entry Operators of the same immigrant community in the NRC Seva Kendra of the immigrant dominated areas, leading to a lack of proper verification of ‘Family Tree’ and legacy data.

It also mentioned that the then NRC Coordinator, Prateek Hajela committed corruption along with his close advisor. The written message named five Software Developer Companies that include WIPRO, BOHNIMAN SYSTEM Pvt. Ltd., Maddoc Technologies, Trans Technologies Solutions, and RJ-45 Technologies, involved in the NRC process, committing corruption of approx Rs. 100 crores.

According to officials, the NRC final data also vanished as the service period of the cloud storage provided by IT firm Wipro had expired. The renewal of the subscription could not be done as there was no coordinator available post the transfer of former coordinator Prateek Hajela.

Officials also said that discontinuation of Wipro which was earlier authorized to look after all IT-related works in the NRC update exercise has caused this issue.

“The cloud service for the huge set of data was provided by Wipro and their contract was till October 19 last year. However, this was not renewed by the earlier co-coordinator (Prateek Hajela). So, the data got offline from December 15 after it was suspended by Wipro. I assumed charge on December 24,” NRC state co-ordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma told news agency PTI.

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