Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Payyavula Keshav said the Andhra Pradesh High Court had, while sanctioning bail to the representatives of Siemens and DesignTech, who were taken into custody by the Enforcement Directorate, made it clear that there was no misuse of funds in the Skill Development Project (SDP), which is in the eye of a political storm following former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s arrest on September 9.
An MoU was signed by the Andhra Pradesh government with Siemens Industrial Software India (Siemens Software) which has units in eight States, including Gujarat, and DesignTech on similar conditions for the same amount in 2015, he pointed, while insisting that the issues raised by the CID in Mr. Naidu’s remand report were irrelevant.
In a press release, Mr. Keshav said the total project cost was ₹3,281 crore, of which Siemens was to provide software worth 90% of the funds. The remaining 10% was to be released by the State government for organising the training programmes through clusters.
Each cluster has a Centre of Excellence and five training centres costing ₹550 crore, and the total cost of six clusters has been pegged at ₹3,300 crore. The State government’s share in it was ₹330 crore, which becomes ₹370 crore on the inclusion of ₹40 crore GST, he said.
Mr. Keshav said the then Secretary of the Skill Development Department, L. Premachandra Reddy, had paid ₹30 crore to the Central Institute of Tool Design of the Union Government towards consultancy fee, finalised each cluster at a cost of ₹550 crore, and released the funds.
M/s DesignTech purchased Siemens Software for a sum of ₹330 crore with a discount of 95% to 97%. Siemens had admitted that it paid ₹70 crore and 42 training centres were set up in various parts of the State, in which necessary computers and other infrastructure was created. These centres were up and running successfully for the last four years.
Right from the formation of the Skill Development Corporation to the creation of any other special wing, everything happened under the supervision of the officers and the role of the Chief Minister and Cabinet Ministers was limited to taking policy decisions, Mr. Keshav said.
“It is easy to understand why the CID has not mentioned many details in its remand report,” Mr. Keshav said, and wondered how the relevant G.O.s which were considered as missing, suddenly emerged.
Also, it was perplexing how the name of Ajeya Kallam, in whose name the agreement was signed, was missing from the FIR, and the name of the then Chief Secretary I.Y.R. Krishna Rao, who appointed a monitoring committee, was also left out by the CID. There were many inconsistencies, for which the State government owes an explanation, Mr. Keshav added.
