Ramesh Chennithala, a senior Congress leader, has called for a judicial investigation into the charges of corruption in the acquisition of Artificial Intelligence (AI) equipped traffic cameras under the State’s Safe Kerala initiative. According to the government, AI cameras are being installed to lower the amount of traffic accidents and violations. These cameras can catch offences such as tripling, not wearing seat belts, failing to stop at a red light, and so on. However, the entire transaction has sparked suspicion due to the relationship between the ruling regime and the contractors, as well as the large disparity in funds involved. Chennithala submitted documentation demonstrating that there were contacts between SRIT India Private Limited and Ashoka Buildcon Limited prior to the start of the e-Tender procedures for the Safe Kerala Project. Furthermore, Chennithala provided documents to the media demonstrating that Ashoka Buildcon had awarded a subcontract to Presadio, a company headed by a relative of the Chief Minister.
According to Ramesh Chennithala, the CM’s silence on these claims proves that he is implicated in the scheme. The Congress leader also addressed Opposition Leader VD Satheesan’s corruption charge against the government in the KFONE issue. Chennithala said that paying Rs.363 crores for seven years of upkeep is massive corruption. He said that corruption increased after M Sivasankar was appointed IT Secretary. Ramesh Chennithala urged that a thorough probe be conducted on all the IT department’s activities since 2018.
The Trail Of Corruption
The corruption trail in the AI camera project is intriguing and it also reveals cartelization of government contracts by loyalists of the current CPIM government. According to Leader of the Opposition V D Satheesan, the first Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF administration exaggerated the cost of the Kerala Fibre Optic Network (K-FON) project by 50%, or roughly ₹500 crore. According to Onmanorama, the project cost could be ₹600 crore higher than the initial estimate of ₹1,028 crore. Congress lawmaker Satheesan claimed that the method used to defraud the people was the same in both the K-FON and AI traffic camera projects. In the AI camera project, the Kerala government’s company Keltron anchored the shady contract, and in the K-FON project, central PSU Bharat Electronics Limited played the lead bidder.
Despite the corruption allegations levelled against him, the chief minister is yet to speak out. KSITIL issued a tender for the K-FON project in June 2018, with the lowest bidder coming from a consortium managed by Bengaluru-based Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). RailTel, South Korean optical ground wire business LS Cable and System, and Bengaluru-based SRIT Private Limited were also members of the BEL-led consortium. The government stated that the project had two packages: Package A was the K-FON project, with a bid price of ₹1,548.68 crore, and Package B was the establishment of a’reliable communication and data collection network’ for KSEB. The BEL consortium provided a ₹17 crore discount, lowering the cost of ‘Package A’ to ₹1,531.68 crore, which is 50% higher than the amount sanctioned by the government.
In February 2019, corrupt IT secretary M Sivasankar wrote to the managing director of Kerala State IT Infrastructure Limited, urging him to submit the ‘letter of intent’ to the BEL-led consortium as soon as possible. In November 2019, the Electronics and Information Technology Department issued a government order accepting the bid of ₹1,531.68 crore for K-FON, which was 50% higher than the initial estimate of ₹1,028.20 crore. This was owing to the impending election notifications and the necessity to maximise the working season from February to May (pre-monsoon). The government has lowered the number of beneficiaries from 20 lakh to 14,000, and the government has honoured its pledge provided to the managing director of KSITIL in February 2019. The cost of operating and maintaining the K-FON project for seven years, including taxes, is ₹428.85 crore. However, without including the KSEB’s share of ₹79.67 crore, the tender amount sanctioned was ₹151.68 crore, or nearly 11% more. The maintenance cost of ₹428.85 crore will be borne by the special purpose vehicle (SPV) formed by KSEB and KSITIL, with the remaining sum of ₹336.15 crore allocated to the SPV as equity. SRIT Private Limited won the competition for K-FON and subcontracted the cable laying to Ashoka Buildcon for ₹314 crore. Ashoka Buildcon hired Presadio Technologies the following month to provide and install cables and pre-fabricated shelters for K-FON.
Ramjith, according to BJP leader Shoba Surendran, was a benami for Prakash Babu, the father-in-law of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s son Vivek Kiran Vijayan. SRIT won the AI camera tender, which Ashoka Buildcon was one of three qualified bidders for, for ₹232 crore. Opposition leaders Satheesan and Ramesh Chennithala expressed concern over cartelization. In February of this year, the government issued another tender to hire a business to administer the Kerala Fibre Optic Network. Cube Fibernet Private Limited, Light Wave Technologies Private Limited, and SRIT India Private Limited competed to become K-FON’s managed service provider (MSP). SRIT won the bid for a fee of 10% of total revenue and is eligible for an additional 2% of total revenue as a performance incentive. According to Opposition Leader VD Satheesan, the government is the investor, while private firms benefit.
From Life Mission To Gold Smuggling- The Many Scams Of Pinarayi Govt
Life Mission to Gold smuggling scam point to the existence of a corrupt network of bureaucratic cronies surrounding the Chief Minister. There is a pertinent need to investigate and examine these corruptions in Kerala and understand how the communists are fattening up using public money.
LIFE Mission was a government project to provide free housing for the homeless and victims of the Kerala floods in 2018. The project aimed to build houses for 140 families in Thrissur’s Wadakkanchery region through the LIFE Mission scheme by spending ₹14.50 crore out of ₹20 crore granted by the Red Crescent via the UAE consulate. The contract also said the remaining amount would be used for the construction of a hospital. The Red Crescent is said to be a non-profit organisation supporting humanitarian work but has a questionable background. UNITAC Builders were given the construction contract. UNITAC managing director Santhosh Eapen said that all the accused had received a bribe worth ₹4.48 crore for the project. Later, the government ordered a probe into the case.
The other accused in the case are Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair. Accused in the case, Swapna Suresh and Sarith PS made allegations against Sivasankar that he had a role in this. Irregularities in the scheme came to light when the ED was probing the gold smuggling case. The ED had reportedly got ₹2 crores in cash, and 2 kgs of gold from Swapna Suresh’s bank locker in October 2020. Swapna Suresh, the prime accused in the gold smuggling case, had told the ED that the money came from the commissions Sivasankar got from clinching a deal with The Red Crescent, an international aid group, for providing housing for 2018 flood victims in Wadakkanchery of Thrissur district.
The investigation agency had earlier arrested M. Sivasankar, the former Principal Secretary to the Kerala Chief minister, in connection with the case. Mr. Sivasankar is currently in judicial custody. Sivasankar had allegedly asked Swapna to keep the cash in her locker. The case, according to the investigation agency, is that a huge amount was syphoned off by the accused as commission from the funds released by an overseas organisation for the housing project. The agency contended that the money found in the bank locker of Swapna Suresh, another accused in the money-laundering case booked earlier, was part of the commission the accused had received. In the meantime, leaked chats between these secretaries and Swapna Suresh had caused embarrassment not only to the CM or the ruling party but also to the people of Kerala. As per the chats, M Sivasankar, the then-principal secretary to the CM, assured Swapna, who was about to resign from her job at the UAE Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram, that she would be assured a job at the NORKA, which is the Department of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs. The chats also mention that Pinarayi’s additional private secretary CM Raveendran informed Sivasankar that Swapna met the CM.
How the saga of corruption that is being unravelled in Kerala relates to each other is still a mystery but on close examination, we can find a common thread that binds them all. The common thread which connects them runs through the Chief Minister and his secretaries, but the big question is about the extent of the role of the CM. Even though that mystery continues, as leader of a democratic state, he should explain what his role is in all these allegations.
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