New Delhi
The party supremo N Chandrababu Naidu was arrested in connection to the alleged Rs 371 crore scam related to the Andhra Pradesh Skill Development scheme 'scam'.
However, the much beleaguered TDP now says the scheme drawn in partnership with German multinational Siemens offered a "Win-Win situation for both Siemens and the state government".
The party has circulated a booklet in which it claims, by implementing the scheme, "Siemens would get their required manpower and the state would generate jobs for unemployed youth".
The booklet titled 'Truth about AP Skill Development Alleged Scam', says - "In 90:10 Private Public Technology partnership scenarios, usually it is an MOU and Grantsprocess that is followed by IT Companies and Govts. This kind of engagement does not generally involve floating float Tenders, as aptly followed by Siemens/DesignTech & previous (read TDP) Govt of AP".The TDP document claims that the handover of all these (concerned) skill development institutes to the respective colleges from Siemens-DesignTech after the hand-holding period also happened during Jagan Mohan Reddy’s tenure from August 2021.
"All those institutes which includes IIIT Idupulapaya have given letters in writing that all the equipment and software were properly supplied and are in complete working condition".
On the allegation that money was routed through various shell companies and 'looted', the booklet says - "It is entirely an issue of GST tax evasion, whatever has been routed to a few companies from Skillar is to generate some fake invoices and claim GST tax credit. How is the AP govt (under Naidu) responsible if some company doesn’t pay tax? From our side, we have released the amount of 371 cr which includes the required GST
tax component, so our tax obligation ends there".
The party also claimed that even after the arrest of N Chandrababu Naidu, the state authorities have notproduced "evidence of any money trail" linking Chandrababu, any family members or companies".
Hours after Naidu's arrest, in a press conference, a senior officer of the state CID referred to Naidu as the "prime accused" in the alleged scam. "This case revolves around the establishment of centres of excellence in Andhra Pradesh," said N Sanjaya, Additional DGP of Andhra CID.
It was alleged that most of the money was diverted through shell companies by using fake invoices. The investigation revealed that Mr Naidu was the "principal conspirator" in the matter and the transfer of government funds to private entities through shell companies happened under his "active leadership", the officer said.
The former Andhra Pradesh chief minister has been arrested under relevant IPC sections, including Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 465 (forgery), according to the notice. The Andhra Pradesh CID has also invoked the Prevention of Corruption Act against him.
In 2014, the Naidu government in the state decided to create an Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation (APSSDC), which was tasked with training unemployed youth in the state.
Small clusters of this corporation were to come up in several parts of the state.
Students who register with the corporation can/could avail various courses/ programs being offered by APSSDC through various training centers.
Among the details, the TDP booklet says Andhra Pradesh established one of the highest numbers of clusters and trained the highest number of candidates among all the states that had similar schemes. After AP started the project, other states started emulating the hub and set up training centres, the website claims.
Andhra Pradesh was also ranked first in the country in the India Skills Report 2018 and 2019 because of the efforts of the then TDP government.
It has been alleged by the YSRCP regime that the former chief minister (Naidu) established the Skill Development Entrepreneurship and Innovation Department. In an apparent effort to exercise greater control over the skilling project and avoid bureaucratic oversight, Naidu allegedly designated the APSSDC as an agency within this department.
It was noted that a civil servant, who is the wife of a Siemens director, was appointed as the deputy chief executive officer of the APSSDC.
In an interesting turn of events, the Enforcement Directorate too launched a probe over money laundering.
It provisionally attached properties belonging to DesignTech worth Rs 31.20 crore and previously arrested Siemens’ former managing director Soumyadri Shekhar Bose, DesignTech’s managing director Vikas Vinayak Khanvelkar, former financial advisor to Skillar Ent Mukul Chandra Agrawal and Suresh Goyal.
The Income Tax Investigation wing in Mumbai also launched its probe.
The probe is said to have revealed that a total of Rs 279 crore was misappropriated through shell companies. As per the CID, of the Rs 371 crore, Siemens received only Rs 58.80 crore from DesignTech.
The TDP on the contrary claims that The Forensic Auditor’s report did not have thedetails of how much money was exactly misappropriated. Different figures are circulating in the media as there is no clarity about the amount being cited.
ends
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