Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala has demanded a judicial inquiry while revealing more pieces of supposed evidence of corruption and fraud in the installation of artificial intelligence (AI) traffic cameras in the Safe Kerala project implemented by the government in the State.
Speaking to the reporters in Kasaragod on Tuesday, Mr. Chennithala said that one of the companies which participated in the tender evaluation prequalification bid did not even have the required qualification.
KELTRON (Kerala State Electronics Corporation) had released the documents of the tender evaluation prequalification bid. As per the requirement, the companies participating in the tender should not have less than 10 years of working.
However, the company Akshara India Private Limited, which was allowed to participate, as per their website was formed in 2017. It means that the company was formed 6 years and 2 months then did not even qualify for the tender.
Mr. Chennithala said that four companies have participated in the tender. Besides, Akshara Enterprises India Pvt.Ltd, Ashoka Buildcon Ltd, Gujarat Infotech Ltd, SRIT India Pvt Ltd participated in the tender.
Except for Gujarath Infotech, other three companies were qualified in Technical Evaluation. But how was the ineligible Akshara Enterprises India Pvt.Ltd, which does not have prerequisite qualification allowed to be included in the tender, he asked.
Similarly, the SRIT, which won the tender for the project, also has no previous experience with traffic surveillance cameras. Because of that, they depended on about five companies. Many of them are scam companies, he accused.
The Congress leader said that though Keltron has released certain documents on their website, there are important documents still hidden.
Releasing the important digital documents including Technical Evaluation Summary Report and Financial Bid Evaluation Summary report, he claimed that at a glance, the report can be understood as fake.
He said there were no signatures of the participants as they are digital copies. Both these are important documents, which were hidden by the government and Keltron, he said.
Even now the detailed reports of these two documents are still deliberately hidden by the government and Keltron, he added.
“ As per the current rules, regulations and orders of the Government, the tender procedures of this project shall be published on the respective website as soon as they are ordered. According to this, all these documents should have been published by 2020 itself. It didn’t happen,” Mr. Chennithala said.
He further said that the Government Order dated 3.8.2018 clearly states the criteria to be followed while inviting tenders by Government agencies. Here they are violated. Many of the documents appeared on the website only two days ago, he pointed out.
The AI camera project, which requires ₹100 crore, was tendered for ₹232 crore. A corruption of ₹132 crore took place, he alleged.
Neither the Chief Minister nor the government has yet been able to prove that the allegations leveled by the opposition are wrong. What followed was the strange move of the Industries Minister whitewashing Keltron and ordering an investigation, Mr. Chennithala said.
He said that the Chief Minister’s stance is to protect the corrupt without being able to give a clear answer to the allegations.
Alleging that these fraud and irregularities has happened with the knowledge of the CM, he demanded a proper judicial inquiry to find the truth in the matter.
