கோடிகளை புரட்டும் தி.மு.க -லேடி—டி.எஸ். காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ்

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டி.எஸ். காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ்…

ஆளுங்கட்சியான தி.மு.க-வின் மாநில தொண்டரணி இணைச் செயலாளர், தமிழ்நாடு மின்வாரிய உயர்மட்ட ஆலோசனைக் குழு உறுப் பினர் என்றும் முன்னாள் கதர் வாரிய மகளிர் கூட்டுறவு சங்க தலைவர் என்றும் இவரது கறுப்பு – சிவப்பு பெயரோடு சொல்கிறது விசிட்டிங் கார்டு’! பளிச்சென்று முதல்வர் கருணாநிதியும் துணை முதல்வர் மு.க.ஸ்டாலினும் அந்த விசிட்டிங் கார்டில் புன்னகை பூக்கிறார்கள். எம்.ஏ., எம்.ஃபில் முடித் திருப்பதாகவும் சொல்கிறது இவரது கார்டு.
ஈரோடு மாவட்டம், கோபிசெட்டிப் பாளையத்தில் தான் இவருக்கு வீடு என்றாலும்,

காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ் நமக்கு அப்பாயின்ட்மென்ட் கொடுத்திருந்தது கோவை பீளமேடு அண்ணாநகரில் உள்ளஅவருடைய பங்களாவில்!

”ஆளுங்கட்சியின் பெயரால்… மத்திய – மாநில அமைச்சர்களிடம் சொல்லி காரியத்தை முடித்துக் கொடுப்பதற்கு ஏராளமான புரோக்கர்கள் இருக்கி றார்கள். அவர்களில் டாப் மோஸ்ட் புள்ளிதான் சத்தமில்லாமல் செயல் படும் காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ்…” என்று தொடர்ந்து பல மாதங்களாக நமக்கு வந்துகொண்டிருந்த தகவல்களை உறுதிப்படுத்த எல்லா வழிகளிலும் முயன்றுகொண்டிருந்த சமயத்தில்தான், மத்திய தகவல் மற்றும் தொழில்நுட்பத் துறையில் கான்ட்ராக்ட் கள்எடுத்துக் கொடுக்கும் இடைத்தரகர் ஒருவர் நம்மைத் தொடர்பு கொண்டார்.

”அநியாயம் நடக்குதுங்க. முந்தியெல்லாம் காசு கொடுத்தா, அது போக வேண்டிய இடத்துக்கு முழுசா போயிடும். வேலையும் முடிஞ்சிடும். இப்போ நடுவில் உள்ள நந்திகளுக்கு தீனி போட்டே எங்க சொத்து அழிஞ்சுடும் போலிருக்கு. அதிலும் காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ் மூலமா போனா, ரெட்டிப்பு செலவு ஆகுது. என்ன பண்றது? வேற யார் மூலமா போனாலும் காரியம் நடக்காதுனு கட்சிக்காரங்களே சொல்றாங்களே…” என்று சலித்துக் கொண்டார் அந்த இடைத்தரகர்

அப்போதும் நாம் நம்பத் தயாராக இல்லை. ஜூ.வி-க்கு மிக நம்பகமான ஒரு நபர், ”ரகசிய வீடியோ பதிவாகவே ஒரு பேரம் நடத்திப் பார்த்துவிட்டால் என்ன?” என்று முன்வர… அடுத்தடுத்து நடந்தன வேகமான ஏற்பாடுகள். இடைத்தரகர் அளித்த விவரங்களை மிக கவனமாக உள்வாங்கிக் கிரகித்துக்கொண்டபின்…. இரண்டு பேராக இந்த ஆபரேஷனைச் செய்வது என்று முடிவானது. அதாவது, இடைத்தரகர் போல நடிக்க ஒருவர்…. மத்திய அரசின் கான்ட்ராக்டைப் பெற விரும்பும் ஆந்திர மாநிலத்துக் கம்பெனியின் அதிகாரியாக ஜூ.வி. நபர் ஒருவர்…!

ஆப்டிகல் ஃபைபர் கேபிள்களை சாலைகளில் பதிப்பதற்காகத் தொலைத் தொடர்புத் துறையின் – பி.எஸ்.என்.எல்-லின் டெல்லி தலைமையகம் கடந்த ஜூலை மாதம் வெளியிட்டிருந்த டெண்டர் அறிவிப்புதான் இந்த இருவர் டீமின் ‘பொறி’!

காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸை தொடர்பு கொள்ளக்கூடியது என்று நம்மிடம் அளிக்கப்பட்ட செல்போன் நம்பரில் தொடர்பு கொண்டார் ‘இடைத்தரகர்’ (அதாவது இடைத்தரகராக நடிக்க முன்வந்தவர்). ஏற்கெனவே இன்னொரு நபர் மூலம் கான்ட்ராக்ட் தொடர்பான விவரங்களை காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ் காதுக்கு அனுப்பி வைத்துவிட்டு… அதன்பிறகுதான் செல்போனில் விஷயத்துக்கு வந்தார். அந்த ஆடியோ பதிவு இதோ (‘இடைத்தரகர் தொடர்புகொண்ட செல் நம்பர் 9442578555. தொடர்பு கொண்ட தேதி ஜூலை 23, வியாழன் மதியம் சுமார் 3 மணி) -

இடைத்தரகர்: ”மேடம்… அவங்க என்ன சொல் றாங்க… இப்ப… அதாவது… டெண்டர் டேட் ஆகஸ்ட் ஏழாம் தேதி தள்ளி வச்சிருக்காங்க.”

எதிர்முனை பெண் குரல்: ”சரி!”

இடைத்தரகர்: ”இப்ப டெண்டர் ஃபைல் எல்லாம் வந்துடுச்சு. நாளைக்கு நைட் கிளம்பி சனிக்கிழமை காலையிலே உங்களை பார்க்கட்டுமா?”

எ.மு.பெ.கு: ”எங்கே வந்து பார்க்கறீங்க?”

இடைத்தரகர்: ”கோயமுத்தூர்ல?”

எ.மு.பெ.கு: ”ரைட்டு! அவங்க (டெண்டர் எடுக்க விரும்பும்) கம்பெனியோட ஜி.எம்-மையும் ஒருதடவை அனுப்பி வைக்கிறேன்னு சொன்னாங்க. அவரு வந்து கன்ஃபார்ம் பண்ணுவாரு…”

இடைத்தரகர்: ”அவரு வந்து கன்ஃபார்ம் பண்ணு வாரு… இன்பிட்வீன் உங்களுக்கு என்ன சேரவேண்டியதோ அதை பேசிட்டு ஒரு டோக்கன் அட்வான்ஸ் மாதிரி த்ரீ டேஸ்ல குடுக்கச் சொல்லிடறேன். ஏன்னா… நாள் நெருங்கிதான் இருக்கு!”

எ.மு.பெ.கு: ”ஆகஸ்ட் ஏழுன்னா ஃபுல் டீடெயில் ஸையும் கொண்டாந்துடுங்க.. அவரு(?) சி.எம்.டி-யை (பி.எஸ்.என்.எல். அதிகாரி?) வச்சுப் பேசுவாரு. சனி, ஞாயிறு மெட்_ராஸ்ல இருப்பாருனு நினைக்கிறேன்… இல்லேன்னா ஊட்டி வந்திடுவாரு. அப்படி ஊட்டி வந்தார்னா, நீங்க கோயமுத்தூர் வரும்போது ஊட்டிக்குப் போய் பார்த்துடலாம்.”

இடைத்தரகர்: ”ஓ.கே… ஓ.கே. உங்களை முதல்ல பார்த்துட்டோம்னா அவங்களுக்கு சேட்டிஸ்ஃபை ஆயிடும்!”

எ.மு.பெ.கு: ”ரைட்டு!’

இடைத்தரகர்: ”ஏன்னா… மேடம்னாலேதான் எல்லாம் முடியும்னு நான் சொல்லி வச்சிருக்கேன்!….”

இவ்வாறாக நீளும் அந்த தொலைபேசி உரையாடலின் பதிவை முதலில் பத்திரப்படுத்திக் கொண்டோம். ”மீடி யேட்டரே இதுல கிடையாது… டைரக்டா அவரே(?)தான் பேசுவாருங்க” என்பது போன்ற டெல்லி தொடர்புகள் தவிர, வேறு பல விஷயங்களும் அந்த உரையாடலில் பேசப்படுகின்றன. இப்போதைக்கு அவை இந்தக் கட்டுரைக்குத் தொடர்பில்லாததால் வாசகர்களின் பார்வைக்கு அளிக்கவில்லை!

ஜூலை 25-ம் தேதி, சனிக்கிழமை காலை 10.40 மணிக்கு கோவையில் பீளமேடு அண்ணாநகர் வீட்டில் காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ் எதிரில் இடைத்தரகராக ஒரு நபரும் ஜூ.வி. நபரும் ஆஜராகிவிட்டார்கள். நேராக அந்த வீட்டுக்குப் போய்விட முடியவில்லை. பக்கத்துத் தெருவிலேயே நம்மை நிற்கும்படி செல்போனில் உத்தர விட்டார்கள்!

நாமும் அங்கே இனோவா காரை நிறுத்திவிட்டுக் காத்திருக்க… ‘ராஜேஷ்’ என்று தன்னை அறிமுகப் படுத்திக்கொண்ட ஒரு நபர் அங்கே வந்து காரில் ஏறிக்கொண்டு காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ் வீட்டுக்கு வழி காட்டினார் (நமது வீடியோ கேமரா பதிவு முழுவதும் இவரும் வருகிறார். விவரமறிந்த தி.மு.க. வட்டாரத்தில் இவர் உருவத்தைக் காட்டி விசாரித்தபோது, ”ராஜேஷ்னா சொன்னாரு? இவர் பேரு சந்திரமோகனாச்சே… அருப்புக்கோட்டை பக்கத்துல பாளையம்பட்டிதான் இவரோட சொந்த ஊரு. அருப்புக்கோட்டையில் கேபிள் ஆபரேட்டரா கஷ்டப்பட்டு ஜீவனம் பண்ணிக் கிட்டிருந்தார் சந்திரமோகன்… செஞ்சியார் மத்திய அமைச்சரா இருக்கும்போது சி.பி.ஐ. வழக்கில் அவரோட உதவியாளர் பாபு மாட்டுனாரே ஞாபகம் இருக்கா..? பாபுவுக்கு ரொம்ப வேண்டப்பட்டவரா சந்திரமோகன் ஆயிட்டாருன்னு பிறகு சொன்னாங்க. இப்ப கோவை ஏரியாவில் காரு, பங்களானு ஜம்முனு இருக்கிற சந்திரமோகன், தன்னை காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸோட உதவி யாளர்னு சொல்லிக்கிறாரு” என்று நமக்கு வேறுவிதமான விளக்கம் ‘ராஜேஷ்’ பற்றி கிடைத்தது!).

நிற்க….

‘ராஜேஷ்’ என்கிற சந்திரமோகன் இனோவா காரில் ஏறிக்கொண்டதோடு இடைத்தரகரிடமும் ஜூ.வி. நபரிடமும் பல்வேறு விதமான கேள்விகளைக் கேட்டு திருப்தி ஆனவுடன்தான், காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸின் பங்களா வுக்கு அழைத்துச் சென்றார். மேற்கொண்டு நடந்ததை ஜூ.வி. நபர் இங்கே விவரிக்கத் துவங்குகிறார் -

வீட்டுக்குள் போன ‘ராஜேஷ்’, அங்கிருந்த வேலைக் காரரிடம், ”பீமா எக்கட?” (பீமா எங்கே) என்றார். கொஞ்ச நேரத்தில் கொழுகொழுவென்று ஒரு கறுப்பு நாய் ஒன்று எங்களை நோக்கி ஓடி வந்தது.

”அது எதுவும் செய்யாதுங்க. எங்க மேடமுக்கு எல்லாமே இந்த பீமாதான்” என்றபடி எங்களை சோபாவில் அமரச் செய்த ‘ராஜேஷ்’ கலை நயம்மிக்க ஊஞ்சலில் அமர்ந்துகொண்டார். அந்த வீட்டு ஹாலின் ஷோகேஸில் ஸ்டாலின், ஆற்காட்டார், அன்பழகன் என தி.மு.க-வின் மூத்த தலைவர்களுடன் காயத்திரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ் சேர்ந்து நிற்கும் புகைப்படங்கள் அழகாக, வரிசையாக காட்சிக்கு வைக்கப்பட்டிருந்தன. தன் மகனோடு தானும் சேர்ந்து தமிழக முதல்வர் கருணாநிதியுடன் எடுத்துக் கொண்ட புகைப்படத்தை தனியாக தொங்க விட்டிருந்தார் காயத்ரி.

பீமா, ஹாலைச் சுற்றி ஒரு ரவுண்ட் அடித்து பெட் ரூமுக்குள் போனபிறகு காயத்ரி பெட்ரூமிலிருந்து ஹாலுக்கு பிரசன்னமாகி, எங்கள் எதிரில் சோபாவில் அமர்ந்துகொண்டார்.

காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ்: ”என்ன மேட்டர்? செப்பண்டி!”

இடைத்தரகர் : ”ஆப்டிக்கல் ஃபைபர் கேபிள் டெண்டர்தான், மேடம்… தமிழ்நாட்டுல இருநூறு கிலோ மீட்டருக்கு கேபிள் பதிக்க (என்னைக் காட்டி) இவங்க கம்பெனி பிளான் பண்ணுது!”

காயத்ரி: ”என்ன பர்ப்பஸ்?”

காரில் அந்த வீட்டை அடையும்போதே ‘ராஜேஷ்’ வசம் இடைத்தரகர் முழு விவரம் சொல்லி, டெண்டர் காப்பியும் கொடுத்திருந்ததால்… அவரே காயத்ரியிடம் எல்லாம் விளக்குகிறார், தெலுங்கில்!

இடைத்தரகரைப் பார்த்து காயத்ரி: ”ராஜா(?) சேஸ்தாரு… ராஜாதான் செய்வாரு!”

இடைத்தரகர்: ”மேடம் பத்தி சொன்னாங்க. கேள்விப்பட்டுதான் உங்களைப் பிடிச்சு இந்த வேலையைச் செய்யலாமுன்னு….”

காயத்ரி: ”பை எலெக்ஷன் வருது… எப்படியும் (கட்சியில் எனக்கு) புரோக்ராம் கொடுத்துடுவாங்க. தொகுதிக்குப் போகணும். அதில்லாம பீமாவை விட்டுட்டு எங்கயும் போக மாட்டேன். டெல்லிக்கு, சென்னைக்குப் போனாலும்கூட பீமாவையும் கூட் டிட்டுப் போயிடுவேன். போன வாரம் மினிஸ்டர்(?) இங்கதான் தங்கியிருந்தாரு!”

இடைத்தரகர்: ”இந்த வீட்டுலயா?”

காயத்ரி: ”குன்னூருக்குப் போனவர், போன வேகத்துலயே இறங்கிட்டாரு. அவருக்கு குளிர் ஒத்துக் காது. கோயம்புத்தூர் வந்து ரெஸிடன்ஸியில அவரு தங்கிட்டாரு. அமைச்சரை ஹோட்டல்ல ரெஸ்ட் எடுக்க விட்டுட்டு அவங்க ஒய்ஃப் எங்க வீட்டுல தங்குனாங்க. உங்க மேட்டரை அமைச்சர்கிட்ட சொல்லிடறேன். உங்களை இந்த வேலைக்காக யார் முன்னால உட்கார வைக்கிறேங்கறதுதான் இங்க முக்கியம்! இதைப் போலத்தான் பி.எஸ்.என்.எல். கான்ட்ராக்ட் ஒண்ணை முடிச்சுக் கொடுத்தேன். இதோ இவரோட (‘ராஜேஷ்’ பக்கம் கைகாட்டி) ஃபிரெண்டுக்குதான் முடிச்சுக் கொடுத்தோம். அது பி.எஸ்.என்.எல். விளம்பர கான்ட்ராக்ட்…”

இடைத்தரகர்: (ஏற்கெனவே விவரம் தெரிந்தவராக) ”செஞ்சியார் பி.ஏ-வா இருந்த பாபுவுக்கா?”

காயத்ரி: ”ஆமா…!”

இடைத்தரகர்: ”ராஜாவுக்கு வேணுங்கறதை நாங்களே தரணுமா?”

காயத்ரி: ”அவர் வாங்க மாட்டார். என்ன பண்ணணுங்கறதை அவரே சொல்லுவார்!”

ராஜேஷ்: ”அதையெல்லாம் ஸ்பிளிட் பண்ணி பிரிச்சுடுவாங்க…”

காயத்ரி: ”நீங்க உங்க மேட்டரை மினிஸ்டரை வெச் சிட்டு எக்ஸ்ப்ளெய்ன் பண்ணணும். சி.எம்.டி-யெல்லாம் பழம் தின்னு கொட்டை போட்ட ஆளு. என்ன பண்ணணுமோ அதை அவர் பார்த்துக்குவாரு. (டெல்லி?) சஞ்சார் நிகம் ரிசப்ஷன்ல உங்களை உட்கார வெச்சு, மேலே அனுப்பிடுவேன். என் பேர்கூட (விசிட்டர் புக்கில்?) வராது. மினிஸ்டரே கூப்பிட்டாதான் உங்களால அந்த கட்டடத்துக்குள்ள போகமுடியும். அவரோட பி.ஏ. செந்திலியாவும் அங்கே இருப்பார். உங்களுக்கு மினிஸ்டர் பர்ஸனல் சிட்டிங் கொடுப்பார். அதுக்கெல்லாம் நான் கியாரண்டி! ஆனா ஒண்ணு.. நாங்க ஃபிளைட் சார்ஜ் போட்டு டெல்லிக்கு வர மாட்டோம். என்கூட ஒருத்தர் வருவாரு. பெரிய புராஜெக்ட்னாத்தான் மினிஸ்டர் வருவாரு…”

ராஜேஷ்: ”இந்த மாதிரி விஷயமெல்லாம் ஒரே சேனல்லதான் நீங்க மூவ் செய்யணும்!”

காயத்ரி: ”நான் ரொம்பவும் வெளியில வரமாட்டேன். தமிழ்நாட்டுல இ.பி. விவகாரங்களையெல்லாம் இவருதான் (ராஜேஷ்) பார்த்துக்குவாரு. மேட்டூர் தெர்மல் பிளான்ட்ல ஆஷ் எடுக்கறதுக்கெல்லாம் இவர்தான் போவாரு. ஸ்டேட்ல இ.பி., ஹெல்த், டிரான்ஸ்போர்ட், ஹைவேஸ் எதுனாலும் நம்ம வேலையை முடிச்சுக்கிடலாம்.”

ராஜேஷ்: ”ஆமா… நாலும் நைன்ட்டி நைன் பர்சன்ட் முடிச்சிடலாம்!”’

காயத்ரி: சாமிநாதன் (நெடுஞ்சாலைத்துறை அமைச்சர் வெள்ளக்கோவில் சாமிநாதன்?) நம்ம பையன் தான். என் சொந்த முயற்சியிலதான் மினிஸ்டர் ஆனான். இ.பி-யிலும் பெரிய லெவல்னா சொல்லுங்க. நீட்டா முடிச்சுடலாம். எங்க இருந்தாலும் என்னோட பாலிஸி என்ன தெரியுமா? சம்பந்தப்பட்ட அமைச்சரோடவே டைரக்ட் சிட்டிங் ஏற்பாடு செஞ்சிடுவேன். சக்சஸ்தான் எனக்கு முக்கியம்!”

இடைத்தரகர் ஆப்டிகல் ஃபைபர் கேபிள் பதிப்பது பற்றி சொல்லச் சொல்ல… காயத்ரி சிறு நோட்டில் குறிப்பெடுத்துக் கொண்டார்.

தமிழ்நாட்டில் மொத்தம் 244 கிலோமீட்டருக்கு வை-மேக்ஸ் உள்ளிட்ட புதிய தொழில்நுட்பத்துக்காக ஆப்டிகல் ஃபைபர் கேபிளை பதிப்பதற்கான கான்ட் ராக்ட் என்றும், இந்த மாநிலத்தில் மட்டும் 60 கோடி ரூபாய்க்கான விவகாரம் என்றும் ராஜேஷ§டன் உரை யாடல் நடக்கிறது. 3-ஜி மற்றும் வை-மேக்ஸ் பற்றி விளக்கமாகவே கேட்டுக் கொள்கிறார் காயத்ரி.

”தமிழ்நாட்டுல மட்டும்தான் கான்ட்ராக்ட் எடுப் பீங்களா? ஆந்திரா, கர்நாடகாவுலகூட எடுக்கலாமே..?” என்றும் என்னிடம் (ஜூ.வி. நபர்) கேட்டபடியே கையடக்க நோட்டில் விவரங்களைக் குறிப்பெடுத்துக் கொள்கிறார்.

என்னை (ஜூ.வி. நபர்) கான்ட்ராக்ட் பெற விரும்பும் கம்பெனியின் ஜி.எம். என்று அறிமுகப்படுத்தியிருந்ததால் இடையிடையே சில விவரங்களை ‘ராஜேஷ்’ கேட்டு செக் பண்ணிக்கொண்டே இருந்தார். உரையாடல் நடந்துகொண்டிருந்தபோதே, ‘ராஜேஷ்’ வைத்திருந்த செல்போனை வாங்கி யாருக்கோ டயல் செய்தார் காயத்ரி. படுஅந்நியோந்நியமாக அவர் பேசியதன் விவரம் இதுதான் -

”நான்தான் காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ்! நேத்து நைட் வந்துட் டீங்களா? (இடைவெளி) ஊட்டிக்கு வர்றீங்களா? (இடை வெளி) எப்ப டெல்லிக்குப் போறீங்க? (இடைவெளி) அப்படியா, சரி நான் நேர்ல வந்து உங்களைப் பார்க் கறேன்!”

போனை கட் செய்தவர் எங்கள் பக்கம் திரும்பி, ”இந்த வீக் அவர் ஊட்டிக்கு வரலையாம். திங்கள்கிழமை டெல்லிக்குக் கிளம்புறாராம். அவர் ஊட்டிக்கு வந்தார்னா இப்பவே உங்களை இவருகூட (‘ராஜேஷ்’ என்கிற சந்திரமோகன்) அனுப்பி வச்சிருப்பேன்!”

இடைத்தரகர்: ”நீங்க எப்ப அரசியலுக்கு வந்தீங்க, மேடம்?”

காயத்ரி: சிரித்துக் கொண்டே.. ”ஆச்சு, இருபது வருசமாச்சு..! நான் அரசியலுக்கு வந்ததே பிஸினசுக்காகத்தான்… வேற எதுக்கும் இல்ல!”

மீண்டும், பி.எஸ்.என்.எல். ஆப்டிகல் கேபிள் பற்றி விலாவாரியாகப் பேசினார். திரும்பவும் சந்திரமோகன் டெண்டர் குறித்த விஷயங்களை காயத்ரிக்கு தெலுங்கிலும் தமிழிலுமாக விளக்கினார்.

”மொத்த கான்ட்ராக்டையும் உங்க ஒருத்தருக்கே தரமாட்டாங்க புரிஞ்சுதா?” என்றும், ”உங்க கான்ட்ராக்டுக்குள்ளே இன்னொருத்தர் யாராச்சும் ஒரு பார்ட் எடுத்து செய்யறதா இருந்தா, அதுக்கும் நீங்க தயாரா இருக்கணும், புரிஞ்சுதா?” என்றும் காயத்ரி எங்களிடம் கேட்டு உறுதி வாங்கிக்கொண்டார்.

இடையிடையே தி.மு.க-வின் பெருந்தலைகள், குடும்பங்கள் பற்றி சில ‘புள்ளி’விவரங்கள் வந்து விழுந்தன. அவையெல்லாம் இந்த விவகாரத் தோடு தொடர்பில்லாதவை என்பதாலும், தேவையில்லாமல் யார் மனதையும் புண்படுத்தக்கூடாது என்பதாலும் இங்கே வெளியிடாமல் தவிர்க்கிறோம்.

ராஜேஷ்: ”கேபிள் பதிக்கிற கான்ட்ராக்ட் மட்டும்தான் நீங்க எடுக்கப் போறீங்களா..? இல்லாட்டி அதுக்கான கேபிளும் சப்ளை பண்ண விரும்பறீங்களா?”

இடைத்தரகர்: ”கேபிள் பதிக்கறதுக்கு மட்டும்தான் நாங்க டெண்டர் கேட்கலாமுன்னு இருக்கோம். மொத்த புராஜெக்ட் காஸ்ட் எப்படியும் இருநூறு கோடிக்கு மேல வரும்னு சொன்னாங்க…”

காயத்ரி: ”கோடின்னா அந்த வீடு(?) கண்டிப்பா உள்ளே வந்துடும், புரியுதுங்களா, அதான்… சம்பந்தப்பட்ட குடும்பம் உள்ளே வரும். (அடுத்தடுத்து ஆளுங்கட்சியில் சில பெரிய பெயர்களாகச் சொல்லி) ………. பிரஷ்ஷர் வரும். இப்படித்தான் கிரிக்கெட் போட்டி ஒளிபரப்பு சம்பந்தமா பி.எஸ்.என்.எல் விளம்பர கான்ட்ராக்டை பாபு கேட்டப்ப, அமைச்சர் தரலை. ‘நீ பாகிஸ்தான் மேட்ச் வரும்போது விளம்பரம் கேளு, தர்றேன்’னாரு. சொன்னபடியே தந்தாரு. ஏன்னா எல்லாரையும் அட்ஜஸ்ட் பண்ணி அவர் போயாகணும். அவர் உட்கார்ந்திருக்கற இடம் அந்த மாதிரி. தனக்கு சிம்மாசனம் கொடுத்த(?) இடத்துக்கு ஏதாவது கொடுத்தாகணும்ங்கறது அவரோட பாலிஸி. சென்ட்ரல் கவர்ன்மென்ட்ல ஒரு இணை அமைச்சரை தனியா போட்டு இதையெல்லாம் வாட்ச் செய்வாங்க. அதிகாரிங்க ஒரு லாபி பண்ணுவாங்க. நம்ம அமைச்சர் அவங்களை மறுத்துப் பேச மாட்டார். ஏன்னு உங்களுக்குப் புரியுதா? நாமளா இருந்தா… ‘நான்தான் மந்திரி! மூடிட்டு கையெழுத்துப் போடு’னு (அதிகாரிகளிடம்) சொல்லுவோம். அவர் அப்படியெல்லாம் இல்லை!”

இடைத்தரகர்: ”இவ்வளவு யதார்த்தமா பேசறீங்க… இவ்ளோ தூரம் இன்ட்ரடியூஸ் பண்றீங்க. உங்களுக்கு ஒரு ட்வென்ட்டி லேக்ஸ் (இருபது லட்சம்) வரைக்கும் கொடுக்கலாம்னு இவங்ககிட்டே (என்னைக் காட்டி) சொன்னேன், மேடம்!”

காயத்ரி: ”பணத்தை முதல்ல வாங்க மாட்டோம். முதல்ல டெல்லிக்குப் போவோம். நானும் உங்களைப் புரிஞ்சுக்கணும் இல்லையா… நீங்க டெல்லிக்கு வாங்க. அங்கே ரிசப்ஷன் எப்படி இருக்குனு பாருங்க. அப்புறமா பார்த்துக்கலாம். நீங்க இவ்வளவு தூரம் சொல்றீங்க. இந்த புராஜெக்டை சக்ஸஸ் பண்ணிக் காட்டுறேன். அப்புறம் நீங்களே பார்த்துக் கொடுங்க! அந்தக் குடும்பமே(?) தலையிட்டாலும் பரவாயில்லை. ஆற்காட்டாரை வெச்சு முடிச்சுத் தரேன்!”

ராஜேஷ்: ”இங்கதான் பெரிய குடும்பம்… பிரஷ்ஷர்னு இருக்கும். வேற ஸ்டேட்லயெல்லாம் இப்படியெல்லாம் இல்ல!”

காயத்ரி: ”மேட்டர்னு பெத்தாயின முந்தட்டுல பெட்டுத்தோம். (விஷ யத்தை பெரியவர் முன்னாடி வெப்போம்) சக்சஸ் சேஸ்தாம். நீங்க மினிஸ்டரைப் பார்க்கும்போது நல்லா விளக்கமா புரியுறமாதிரி பேசிடணும். இல்லைன்னா அவர் தன்னோட பி.ஏ-வைப் பார்க்கச் சொல்லிட்டுப் போயிடுவாரு. எப்ப டெண்டர் முடியுது? டெண்டர் போட்டுத்தான் இதைப் பண்ணணுமா? மினிஸ்டரே பண்ணிடக் கூடாதா?”

உடனே, இடைத்தரகர் முதலி லிருந்து அந்த டெண்டர் பற்றி விவரிக்கும் காட்சிகளும், அதை காயத்ரி குறிப்பெடுத்துக் கொள்வதும் நாங்கள் கொண்டு போன ரகசிய வீடியோ கேமராவில் அப்படியே பதிவாகியுள்ளது.

காயத்ரி: ”மினிஸ்டர் தொகுதிக்கு வந்தா இதைப் பத்திப் பேச முடியாது. இந்தப் பொம்பளை இங்க ஏன் வந்தாங்கன்னு தொகுதியில பார்ப்பாங்க. அவரும் நம்மளை பார்க்க மாட்டாரு. நாம் டெல்லிக்கு போய்த்தான் இந்த மேட்டரை முடிக்கணும். புதன்கிழமை டெல்லிக்குப் போயிடணும். வியாழக்கிழமை காலையில மினிஸ்டர் வீட்டுக்குப் போய் நேர்ல உங்க விஷயத்தைப் பத்திப் பேசிடுவேன். அப்புறம் நிகம் (தொலைத் தொடர்பு டெல்லி அலுவலகம்) வந்து பார்த்திடுவாரு…”

இடைத்தரகர்: (என்னைக் காட்டி) ”நான்தான் இந்த கம்பெனிக்காரங்களை உங்களுக்கு அறிமுகம் செஞ்சு வெச்சிருக்கேன். ரொம்ப நாளா உங்க அப்பாயின்ட் மென்ட் கிடைக்காம கஷ்டப்பட்டு உங்களைப் பார்க்க வெச்சிட்டேன். எனக்கு இதுல என்ன பங்குங்கறதையும் நீங்களே சொல்லிடுங்க, மேடம்…”

காயத்ரி சிரித்துக் கொண்டே தலையாட்டுகிறார்.

ராஜேஷ்: ”அம்மா யாரையும் விட்டுர மாட்டாங்க. நீங்க கேக்கவே வேண்டியதில்லை. அவங்களை

நம்புங்க…”

மீட்டிங் முடியும் தருணத்தில் திரும்பவும் அறைக்குள் இருந்து பீமா வருகிறது. நாம் கொண்டு போயிருந்த ஸ்வீட் பாக்ஸை வாயால் கவ்வி காயத்ரியிடம் கொடுக்கிறது.

காயத்ரி: ”எதுன்னாலும் இது என்கிட்டதான் கொடுக்கும். எனக்குப் பிடிச்சதை கொடுக்கும். என் மனசு இதுக்குப் புரியும்!” என்று சொல்லிக் கொண்டிருக் கும்போதே இடைத்தரகர் தயார் செய்து எடுத்துப் போயிருந்த பி.எஸ்.என்.எல். தொடர்பான டெண்டர் கோப்புகளை பீமா சட்டென்று கவ்விக்கொண்டு ஓடவும்….

காயத்ரி: ”பார்த்தீங்களா… பீமா கவ்வியாச்சு. இந்த வேலையை பீமா செய்யச் சொல்லுது!” என்றபடியே வாசல் வரை வந்து எங்கள் இருவருக்கும் விடை கொடுத் தார்.

அடுத்தநாள், ஜூலை 26-ம் தேதி, ஞாயிற்றுக்கிழமை ‘இடைத்தரகராக’ நடித்தவருக்கு போன் செய்தார் ‘பிரகாஷ்’ என்று அறிமுகப்படுத்திக்கொண்ட நபர். அழைப்பு வந்த செல் நம்பர் 9842299722.

”மினிஸ்டர்கிட்டே பேசியாச்சு… நாங்க அந்த கம்பெனி ஜி.எம்-கிட்டே அர்ஜென்ட்டா பேசணும். முக்கியமா மேடம்தான் பேசணும்னு சொன்னாங்க. அவரைப் பேசச் சொல்லுங்க” என்கிற ரீதியில் அடுத்தடுத்து போன் வந்துகொண்டே இருந்தது.

‘ராஜா’ என்றும் ‘மினிஸ்டர்’ என்றும் காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ் கூறுவது மத்திய அமைச்சரும், சம்பந்தப்பட்ட துறைக்கு பொறுப்பானவருமான ஆ.ராசாவை குறிப்பிட்டுத்தான் என்றே புரிந்து கொள்ள வேண்டியிருக்கிறது. அமைச்சரின் பெயரால் நடக்கும் இந்த பேரத்தின் மூலம் நிஜமாகவே கான்ட்ராக்ட்டுகளை முடிக்க முடியுமா… அப்படி இதற்குமுன் முடிக்கப்பட்டிருக்கிறதா என்பதையெல்லாம் கண்டு பிடிக்கும் பொறுப்பை மத்திய – மாநில அரசுகளிடமே ஒப்படைக்கிறோம். இந்த ஆபரேஷனுக்குப் பிறகு நமது இருவர் டீம் பதிவு செய்து கொண்ட விவரங்களையும், எந்த இடத்திலும் அளிக்கத் தயாராகஇருக்கிறோம்.

காயத்ரி ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ் என்கிற இந்தப் பெண்மணி ஆளுங்கட்சியான தி.மு.க-வைச் சேர்ந்தவர்! அவரிடம் மாநில அரசின் கட்டுப்பாட்டில் உள்ள போலீஸாரே விசாரணை நடத்தினால் எதிர்க்கட்சிகளாலும் மற்றவர்களாலும் அது ஒருதலைபட்சமாக பார்க்கப்படும் என்று முதல்வர் கருதினால்… பேசாமல் இதை சி.பி.ஐ. விசாரணைக்கேகூட விட்டுவிடலாம்.

இதுவரை காயத்ரி பேசிய தொலைபேசி எண்கள்… இதுவரை அவர்மூலம் முடிக்கப்பட்ட(?) கான்ட்ராக்ட் தொடர்பான தகவல்கள்…. அதில் சம்பந்தப்பட்ட மற்றவர்கள்…. இப்படி எல்லா விவரங்களையும் சி.பி.ஐ. மூலமாக வெளி உலகத்துக்குக் கொண்டு வந்து ‘அக்னிப் பிரவேசம்’ செய்ய தி.மு.க. அரசு தயங்காது என்றே நம்புவோம்!

ஜூனியர் விகடன்

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ஆ.ராசா பேரால் பகீர் பேரம்! – ஜூனியர் விகடனின் ரகசிய கேமரா பதிவுகள்’ ரிப்போர்ட் நாடு முழுவதும் அதிர்வுகளை ஏற்படுத்தியுள்ளது. தமிழில் படிக்க இயலாத வெளிநாடு வாழ் இந்தியர்கள் உள்பட பலரது வேண்டுகோளுக்கு இணங்க,

இந்த அதிரடி ரிப்போர்ட்டின் ஆங்கில வடிவம் இதோ…

To read this article in English

http://devapriyaji.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/kanimozhi-a-raja-spectrum-scandal-vedio-exposure/

THE ‘A RAJA TAPES’ ORIGINAL RECORDINGS

CBI raid DOT offices after CVC has charged the telecom ministry of irregularities in awarding the 2G sepctrum licences loss of revenue to the government.

Sanchar Bhawan was under raid for the department allocation of 2G spectrum to some of the new players at throw away prices without any bid but adopted on first come- first serve basis.

TRAI,the telecom regulator,persistent consternation that the contracts were awarded without their advice but the Minister says he did so on the patterns followed by the TRAI and tried to keep the cost of telecom services ultimately easy reach of for consumers

2G spectrum to new players in total to eight new telecom Inc licences given along with pack 4.4 MHz spectrum to start mobile services without proper tender or offer.CBI to examine charges of irregularities in the process.When the new entrants who had no assets of telecom but has only the licences in this sector sold part of their stake at huge premium within days of getting the licences,the scam came to light, the Spectrum allotment issue alleged to a revenue loss of more than Rs 20,000 crore to 60,000 crore to the public exchequer.

CPI(M) asked the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to take measures to ensure accountability in the controversial spectrum allotment issue in the wake of CBI searches the DOT officces, telecom minister A Raja, who has ruled out resignation.Opposition is making calls for telecom minister to immediately resign.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/cbi-officials-follow-2g-spectrum-scam_100264912.html

Sunday, March 22, 2009
Spectrum Scam : India’s Mother of All Scams
The 2G Spectrum allocation scam, considered as the mother of all scam in India, caused more than Rs. 60,000 crores loss to public exchequer exposes the vulnerability of prevailing laws of the Nation, at the whims and fancies of political-middlemen nexus. The word Spectrum simply means the allotment of Electro Magnetic Waves, the property of a Nation to the mobile telephone operators as well as to the others in the communication industry.

The entire scam broke out during the dubious decisions taken by the Telecom Minister A.Raja, by allotting 2G(second generation) spectrum to new entrants in the telecom sector at damn cheap price. The whole procedure lacks cabinet approval, while such a huge deal seeks mandatory approval of Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. The Spectrum was allotted in 2008 beginning at price fixed in 2001, violating the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s vehement objection. More over there was no auction, the license were gifted on a shabby ‘first come first serve method’.

The license fee fixed in 2001, where India had only four million subscribers, were simply applied to when spectrum licenses were granted in 2008 also, ignoring the fact that the subscribers number had crossed 300 million. Nothing prevented Minister Raja to ‘gift’ licenses to the mobile companies at a throw away prices, though TRAI Chairman Nripendra Mishra and Finance Ministry made objections.

There is joke in the Telecom sector on the basic root of the spectrum controversy. When Dayanidhi Maran was thrown out of the Telecom Ministry on May 2007, the then Minister for Environment and Forests Raja entered the Sanchar Bhavan, the head quarters of the Telecom Ministry along with the real-estate brokers of Parayavaran Bhavan(head quarters of Environment Ministry). According to telecom officials, this spectrum scam is the entry of real estate brokers in the telecom sector or tussle in sharing of the scarce electro magnetic waves (spectrum) between the existing telecom brokers and new real estate brokers.

The joke became a fact, when real estate companies Swan and Unitech bagged the spectrum license at a throw away price and they off-loaded their shares at a whopping price to multi-national telecom giants. The Swan Telecom bagged the license for Rs.1537 crore for operating in 13 circles. Within months (September) it sold its 45 per cent of shares to Etisalat, the telecom giant in UAE for 900 million US dollars (Approximately Rs.4500 crore).

Similarly, the Unitech, another real estate company too entered into a bumper deal, without investing anything in telecom infrastructure. The company got license to operate in 22 circles for Rs.1651 crore. Within weeks, it sold 60 per cent shares for Rs.6120 to the Norwegian company Telenor, who is currently a major telecom player in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The way on which these two controversial real estate companies bagged the telecom licenses can be compares to the DDA flat allotments or other real estate allotments in fictitious names. In a crucial strategic sector like telecom the Unitech gave application for licenses in several names. They had applied in the names of Unitech Infrastructure, Unitech Builders and Estates, Aska Projects, Nahan Properties, Hudson properties, Volga Properties, Adonis Projects and Azare properties. But they were able to merge all their licenses, when Raja notified another dubious notification.

Swan Telecom, floated just two years ago, earlier known, Swan Capital. Anil Ambani earlier owned this company. Ambani had submitted for GSM license in January 2007, when his Reliance Mobile was permitted to operate only CDMA system. When dual policy was declared, Ambani lost interest in Swan, as he can operate both technologies through Reliance. This company was taken over by Maharashtra based real estate entrepreneurs Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka of Dynamix Balwa group. There are rumours in the telecom sector that the take over real estate businessmen was felicitated by Raja. Shareholding pattern of Swan coincides with zoology, where the ownership goes to Tiger Trustees, which controls Parrot Investments in Mauritius, which owned by Zebra Investments in off-shore money parking islands in the Indian Ocean.

When all allegations broke out, Raja kept saying he was keeping the rulebook, what his predecessors had followed from 1994. He justified his acts for breaking the cartelization in the telecom sector and claimed ‘aam admi’ would be benefited by his decisions. Even his mentor Karunanidhi rubbished the allegations that the ‘leaders of certain political parties can’t tolerate the rise of a humble Dalit’.

The Pioneer’s series of investigative reports became a blow to Raja’s pretending of innocence and corruption free. His money parking methods by floating companies in the name of close relatives is now open. After becoming the Union Minister in 2004, Raja’s close relatives started real estate companies. The real estate companies Green House Promoters, Equaas Estates, Kovai Shelters Promoters are filled with his brothers, nephews and nieces as Directors of the Board. He even put his wife M.A.Parameswari in the board of Green House and Equaas Estates, by violating the service rules and code of conduct of ministers. As a Cabinet Minister, Raja has to inform the Prime Minister on wife’s business and file a mandatory affidavit that there is no clash of interest in the discharge of his duties.

Raja’s now prefers to say that all the entries in the Registrar of Companies are wrong and he and his wife was not aware that, she was a director. The Equaas Estates’ domestic turn over in the very first years shows more than Rs.755 crore, which they now prefers to say a wrong entry like Satyam Computer Raju’s confession.

Green House has even opened a Singapore office, violating the foreign exchange norms. In Kovai Shelters, one director Dr.R.Sridhar, nephew of Raja is holding 15 per cent shares, while holding a Class-1 officer post in the Ministry of Environment.

The Pioneer reported on December 15, quoting highly placed sources in the Telecom Ministry on the plan of Swan Telecom to acquire 49 shares in Raja’s relative’s Green House. But this move was aborted and the money parking took a different route.

The documents filed with Registrar of Companies, Mumbai reveal the mysterious allotment of shares to Tamil Nadu based businessmen in Swan. On December 17, 2008 the Swan has allotted Rs.380 Cr worth shares to Chennai based Genex Exim Ventures. This company was floated four months ago with just Rs.1 Lakh capital.

Earlier, when the spectrum controversy broke out, Raja used to defend that the Swan and Unitech belong to Maharashtra and Delhi and no person from Tamil Nadu was associated with these companies.

According to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies in Chennai, Genex was incorporated in September 17, 2008 with two directors, Mohammed Hassan (58) and Ahamed Shakir (41). The company was represented by Ahmed Syed Salahuddin (32) on the board of Swan. All three of them belong to Kilukarai, a small coastal village in Ramanathapuram district in Tamil Nadu.

The Tamil Nadu link now gets further strengthened. Ahmed Syed Salahuddin is the younger son of Syed Mohammed Salahuddin, the NRI business tycoon heading the Dubai based real estate conglomerate ETA Ascon Star Group, which in turn began its Indian operations in 2006 by floating several real estate firms across the state. Raja was then Union Environment Minister and his party the DMK assumed power in Tamil Nadu.

The ETA Group entered into a MoU with the Tamil Nadu government for setting up an IT Economic Special Zone worth Rs 3750 crore, when A Raja became the Union Telecom Minister in May 2007. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi was present at the much-hyped MoU signing ceremony for the project proposed at Kancheepuram, near Chennai on a nearly 500 acre plot.

It is mysterious that a large business group should enter Swan’s board through a company with a meager one lakh paid up capital. Incidentally, Genex Exim, having acquired more than Rs.380 Cr of Swan Telecom shares, has not filed any document with the authorities to show their source of income.

Raja’s favoritsm towards the Swan was exposed in the unprecedented deal with the state owned BSNL. On September 13, 2008 the BSNL had entered an unprecedented deal with Swan. The Intra Circle Roaming deal signed with the Swan is literally silent on the finance part. When controversies broke out the BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Kuldeep Goyal prefers to coin a new terminology for the deal. ‘The Limited MoU’ described by him is a day light robbery of public assets.

Raja shunted out all the senior officials in the BSNL and Wireless Planning
Co-ordination (WPC) wing of Telecom Department who objected the favoritism to the Swan. BSNL has never entered into Intra Circle Roaming deal with any operator till date.
With this deal, the Swan can use the spectrum, communication towers and the entire network of BSNL, without any cost. Though the BSNL management suggested charging 52 paise per call, it was mysteriously absent in the MoU.

The BSNL was forced to sign this deal, just 10 days before the sale of Swan’s shares to Etisalt for 900 million US dollars. The deal literally helped the Swan to pocket huge money, without investing anything.

Nothing happened, though the top telecom officials alerted the Prime Minister. Even a Congress MP Dharam Pal Sabharwal wrote to Prime Minister on this controversial incident on November 2008, no action was taken. According to the letter wrote to Prime Minister by the CPI (M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury in February 2008, clearly warns the ‘scam in the offing’, when more than 575 real estate companies and stock broking firms approached the telecom ministry for spectrum license. Even after misleading the Parliament, Raja kept saying he had the concurrence of Prime Minister.
Raja blatantly lied to the Parliament that his action on 2G-spectrum allocation was never objected by TRAI or Finance Ministry.

At present Raja is eager to allot 3G (Third Generation) spectrum before his tenure. But his attempts were foiled after the Government had decided to refer the 3G auction to Group of Ministers (GoM).

The auction was earlier scheduled on January 16, and shifted to January 30 and now deferred indefinitely, after the intervention of Cabinet Secretary, who suggested ‘thorough study’. But the current developments show that the auction may not take place during the tenure of this government. Now the question hangs fire is who authorized Raja to announce the auction dates in advance, before getting Cabinet clearance.

Though aware of Raja’s daylight robbery in every stage, the compulsions of coalition politics, kept the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to sit in the gallery as a mute spectator. As and when he summons Raja, his political patriarch Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi lands in Delhi and kept Singh silent by dashing into Madam Sonia’s 10 Janpath.

On December 4, Karuanidhi landed in Delhi with a multi-party delegation to raise the issue of the ‘plight’ of Sri Lankan Tamils. The delegation met the Prime Minister at 10 am. After an hour, leaving all the party leaders, Karunanidhi met Sonia Gandhi along with his daughter Kanimozhi. Even his close confident and Union Minister T.R.Baalu was asked to leave after the photo session. After the meeting Karunanidhi held a press conference and claimed that he had discussed the Sri Lankan issue with Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi.
Skeptic Tamil leaders ask, then why are they not allowed to participate in the talks with Sonia Gandhi, while they were all in the meeting with Prime Minister. According to them Karunanidhi asked Congress ‘help’ in sharing the burden of spectrum scam.

[Writer is Special Correspondent of 'The Pioneer' daily from New Delhi, India.]

(‘The Pioneer’ had published series of reports on Dec 2008 – Mar 2009 on the Spectrum scam and other related issues)

http://jgopikrishnan.blogspot.com/2009/03/spectrum-scam-indias-mother-of-all.html

Kanimozhi & seven dwarfs

Actually, the fairytale of Kanimozhi, d/o Mr Kalaignar, is a bit different from that of Snow White, a beautiful princess who was abandoned by her stepmother in a forest where she met seven lovable midgets, and where she went into coma after biting a toxic apple. For one thing, in Snow White’s tale, there is no global economic crisis, and general elections are not around the corner. Another difference is that while Snow White’s step-mother always had the King’s ear and thus the upper hand, Kanimozhi’s step-mother has long lost control of Mr Kalaignar. And while Snow White’s seven friends were biological dwarfs, Kanimozhi’s are sized by their moral stature.

Take communications minister A Raja, who is akin to Dopey among Snow White’s dwarfs. He and Kanimozhi took over from Dayanidhi Maran when Mr Kalaignar banished the latter from his kingdom in April 2007. Dayanidhi and brother Kalanidhi had become too ambitious, holding popularity contests in their newspaper; so it was burnt down. Prior to his downfall, Dayanidhi served dual roles in distant Delhi: as minister in a financially-busy ministry, he was also Mr Kalaignar’s pointsman in the Capital. After Dayanidhi’s departure, Raja assumed the first role, Kanimozhi the second.

Raja was focused on his task from the start; this July, the Express reported his underselling of 2G spectrum (a designated part of the airwaves for use by mobile phone operators) which caused a loss of Rs 22,466 crore. Turns out we were wrong by around Rs 37,500 crore. Now the Left and the BJP want Raja’s head; the central vigilance commission is deep into its investigation; and the Delhi High Court has admitted a public interest litigation against the allotment.

The scam, briefly: Raja did not auction the spectrum, but sold it on a first-come-firstserve basis. And not at 2007 prices; he charged the 2001 price of Rs 1,650 crore. That would have been okay, except he did not give any genuine operator time to react; in effect, the sale announcement came at the start of a weekend, and it closed after the weekend was over. Foreign players did not get time to mobilize their Rs 1,650 crore – which again would be okay, if it weren’t for the fact that two operators who did get the Spectrum, Unitech and Swan (realty players who do not even own a simple telecom asset like a network tower), effectively and profitably resold their spectrum to foreign players.

Raja not only undersold, but blocked genuine foreign players, who came in anyway, after enriching someone other than the Government of India. Was it just the Delhi responsibilities that Kanimozhi shared with Raja? Or should she share culpability as well? Then there is T R Baalu, who’s like the dwarf Sleepy, considering his accomplishments in nearly five years as surface transport minister in the UPA government. The highways programmes of the NDA government have all but come to a halt. And now that the world is in an economic slowdown, it ought to be a time when India pumped money into this sector of infrastructure – but private companies are getting cold feet because bank credit has dried up. Some economists think India can be among the first to recover from the global recession; that might have been true had Baalu done his job and kept performance high. Instead, Sleepy has been fruitlessly pursuing the Sethusamundram Canal project, and he has tried to divert cheap gas to companies owned by his sons.

Back home in Tamil Nadu, there is the electricity minister Arcot Veeraswamy, possibly the dwarf Happy. He has reigned over a deteriorating power situation which makes a mockery of the UPA’s hopes that India will help pull the globe out of recession.

Ask any industrialist in the state that has been among the most industrialized in the country. Factory owners in Sriperumbudur lament the open extortion by “rowdies”; they lament the money they spend on private generators due to power rationing; they lament the drying up of the US market. One reason it is so bad is Veeraswamy’s great interest in monitoring the rise of actorturned politician Vijaykanth, a man with no ideas, no neck, but lots of supporters, as a recent rally in Chennai demonstrated.

Kanimozhi’s two step-brothers, Stalin and Azhagiri, can be likened to Snow White’s Sneezy and Grumpy. These guys are certainly not the Brothers Karamazov. If they were, nobody would spend their time wondering what lies in store for the DMK after Mr Kalaignar departs from the scene.

By protocol, Stalin as a senior minister in the state government would appear to be the natural heir. But Azhagiri, the elder brother who is more straightforward than subtle, has been ruling the roost in the southern part of the state, and has of late turned his gaze to the Capital.

Kanimozhi seems to have taken a liking for Grumpy. And in doing so, her well-wishers may have displayed a bit of ruthlessness as well. For, back in June there were a bunch of mysterious rumours about Stalin, saying that he had returned from a London trip with some dreaded disease which would cut his life short and which had forced Mr Kalaignar to reconsider his succession. It was a false rumour. Stalin found that he had sarcoidosis, a node in the lung that is easily curable. At worst, he is simply, well, Sneezy.

The rumours, however, are an example of how absurd the fallout of sibling rivalry can get.

The last two in Kanimozhi’s troupe would be her rivals for Mr Kalaignar’s mantle: PMK founder S Ramdoss and film icon Rajnikanth.

Ramdoss, whose son is the health minister in Delhi (so we can call him Doc), thinks he is the natural successor. He overplayed his hand recently, however, and finds falling between both the DMK’s and Ms J Jayalalithaa’s stools. But he is a potent force, demonstrated by the fact that Baalu visited him at his house in Tindivanam two weeks back – some say to request Ramdoss not to raise the 2G spectrum controversy in the state. Perhaps his silence will be his price for his return to the DMK-led front.

Rajnikanth is a force greater than a tsunami, and was almost lured into politics by the late G K Moopanar. The talk is that he will start his own party – but only after Mr Kalaignar goes. Naturally, of Snow White’s dwarfs, he should be Bashful.

None of this can be good for Kanimozhi, who, if you’ve noticed, has been unable to live up to her responsibility as Mr Kalaignar’s pointsman in Delhi, as evidenced by her lack of handling of the Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue and the 2G spectrum controversy.

It’s probably because she spends all her time in Chennai, rushing from one local function to the next, keeping her visibility high, and feeding her obscenely growing ambition. Unlike Snow White, however, she has enviable maternal support, and it looks as if more than her, it will be the residents of Tamil Nadu who will be biting the poisoned apple and slipping into coma, with no prince charming to rescue us in sight

editorchief@epmltd.com

About The Author:Aditya Sinha is the Editor-in-Chief of The New Indian Express and is based at Chennai

http://expressbuzz.com/Opinion/Columnists/kanimozhi-/21161.html

Max greed: Raja’s friend shows how to mint profit

Even as the dust is yet to settle on the 2G and 3G scandals allegedly involving A Raja, the Union Telecom Minister is embroiled in another controversy. This time, it is to do with the allotment of franchisees for BSNL’s recently-launched WiMax services to a company owned by one of the Minister’s close associates from Perambulur.The company, Wellcom Communications India Pvt Ltd, has applied for licences to seven most revenue-generating of the 16 circles in India.

According to sources, the revenue-sharing pattern agreed upon is 75 per cent to the private party and 25 per cent to BSNL. Sources said that if the company gets the nod for the 20 Mega Hz spectrum, it may sell off stakes to foreign players at huge profits, like in the 2G case.They have questioned the need even for the appointment of franchisees when the BSNL can directly provide the service. WiMax technology provides wireless Internet and voice in future to laptops and mobile phones. The number of WiMax connections is expected to rise to 50,000 subscribers in the first year itself, leading to a target of 1 million subscribers in five years in each circle.Wellcom Communications applied to be a franchisee in November 2008.

The Chennai-based company, which was initially engaged in minor engineering and construction works, was formed in December 2006 with a Rs 10-lakh capital. This went up to Rs 10 crore in November 2008, apparently with an aim to enhancing the company’s credibility for the WiMax bid.Wellcom Communications is represented by T Silvarajoo (55) with 15 per cent shares. The other two directors are Dato Vijayakumar Ratnavelu (47) and T Gunasegaran Thiagarajan, both Tamilians with a Malaysian citizenship. Dato Vijayakumar is also running a company with the same name in Malaysia.

Silvarajoo hails from Raja’s constituency Perambulur and is a close associate of the Minister. He is also associated with Dr C Krishnamoorthy, in whose building Raja had begun his legal practice in the constituency. Silvarajoo is currently a sub-contractor of CPWD’s road works. He supplies pellets from a quarry owned by Krishnamoorthy for the ongoing Chennai-Tiruchirappally National Highway (NH-45) project.The Pioneer had earlier reported that Krishnamoorthy headed a real estate company, called Kovai Shelters, with Raja’s nephew and two nieces on its board of directors with 45 per cent shares.

Though the BSNL had invited franchisees a year ago, it postponed the bid several times allegedly due to pressure from the Minister who, sources said, kept adding names to the original list. Apparently under Raja’s pressure, BSNL chairman and managing director Kuldeep Goyal initiated the franchise-awarding procedures in mid-January. Despite repeated attempts by The Pioneer, the CMD refused to talk to this newspaper.Wellcom Communications has applied for Chennai, Karnataka, Rajastan, Bihar, UP (West), Haryana and Orissa circles.

The Pioneer has learned that the BSNL would finalise the franchise by next week.The Pioneer had earlier reported that the BSNL had entered into an unprecedented arrangement with the private party, Swan Telecom, for intra-circle roaming service without any financial benefit to the public sector unit. Though a BSNL expert committee had suggested a levy of 52 paise per call, it found no mention in the MoU signed with Swan.

The Pioneer has also reported the saga of two companies owned by the Minister’s close relatives. Green House Promoters (Private) Limited and Equaas Estates (Private) Limited were floated soon after Raja became a Union Minister. His wife Parameswari also served as a director on the board of these two firms.

http://jgopikrishnan.blogspot.com/2009/03/spectrum-scandal-and-telecom-ministers.html

Raja kin lied over resignation

Worked simultaneously for Govt and private company till Pioneer expose

Facing charges of holding the post of director in a private company while being in the service of the Central Government, Telecom Minister A Raja’s nephew Dr R Sridhar has found an ingenious way to wriggle out of the mess.Serving a legal notice on The Pioneer for exposing the violation of All India Services (Conduct) Rules, which bar Government employees from associating with private business, Sridhar has claimed he resigned from the private company nearly a year ago, on March 24, 2008, to be precise. But the online registry of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs shows that Sridhar submitted his resignation on January 27, which is two weeks after The Pioneer expose on him. But to escape action for violating the Government rules, he pre-dated his resignation letter to March 24, 2008.

The Pioneer had on January 12 reported that Sridhar, who is a Deputy Director in the Ministry of Environment and Forests, simultaneously held the directorship in the Chennai-based Kovai Shelters and Promoters Pvt Ltd. Interestingly, documents of the Registrar of Companies, Coimbatore, show that Sridhar was very much a director of the Kovai Shelters and Promoters Pvt Ltd when its last annual general body meeting took place on August 7, 2008. Sridhar’s appointment to the post of Deputy Director in the Ministry of Environment and Forests was notified when his uncle Raja headed the Ministry in early 2007.

Sridhar, who holds a doctorate in marine biology, did not have the mandatory five-year experience.Sources in the Ministry said Sridhar had produced a certificate from his research guide that he had assisted him for five years. According to them, the officials were forced to accept the experience certificate produced by Sridhar and the guide — Dr L Kannan —was later elevated as the Vice-Chancellor of Thiruvalluvar University in Tamil Nadu. In a legal notice sent to The Pioneer, Sridhar claimed that he had joined Government service on March 26, 2008, and left the real estate company’s directorship two days prior to that.

Sridhar also violated the Government’s recruitment rules by suppressing the fact that he was holding the directorship and 15 per cent shares in Kovai Shelters. Apart from Sridhar, Raja’s nieces R Anandabhu-vaneswari and R Santhanlak-shmi also have 15 per cent shares each in the real estate firm. Raja's close associate, Dr Krishnamoorthy, is the managing director of this company. Krishnamoorthy also owns a Coimbatore-based finance company, AGM Investment and Finance Private Limited, along with his brother C Sathyanarayan. They bought the company in November 2004, soon after Raja became a Cabinet Minister. Incidentally, prior to becoming a Minister, Raja operated his law business in Peramballur from the first-floor office of Krishnamoor-thy's building.

The Pioneer has already reported the saga of two companies owned by Union Telecom Minister Raja's close relatives. Green House Promoters (Private) Limited and Equaas Estates (Private) Limited were floated soon after Raja became a Union Minister. His wife Parameswari also served as a director on the board of these two firms. Flouting rules, Raja had not filed information about his wife’s business to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's office. Raja's nephews RP Paramesh Kumar and R Ramganesh, brother A Kalia Perumal and niece Malarvizhi Ram are the directors of these two companies.

http://jgopikrishnan.blogspot.com/2009/03/spectrum-scandal-and-telecom-ministers.html

Scandal in the Airwaves

There is a joke in the telecom industry on the origins of the 2G (Second Generation) spectrum controversy. When Dayanidhi Maran had to resign as Telecom Minister in May 2007, and the then Minister for Environment and Forests A Raja stepped into his shoes, the new Telecom Minister brought with him to Sanchar Bhavan, the headquarters of the Telecom Ministry, those real estate brokers who normally hang around Paryavaran Bhavan (headquarters of the Environment Ministry). It was in this way, telecom industry insiders laugh, that a clutch of real estate brokers got a toehold in the telecom sector. These real estate brokers soon cornered spectrum allocations, resulting in a tussle for the sharing of the scarce electromagnetic waves between existing telecom services providers, and the ‘new services providers’.Facts relating to the spectrum scam weren’t much different.

The scam can be traced to real estate companies — Swan and Unitech — bagging spectrum licences at throwaway prices. They then offloaded their shares at exorbitant prices to multinational telecom giants. Swan Telecom, for instance, bagged licences for operating in 13 circles by paying a mere Rs 1,537 crore. Within months, it sold 45 per cent of its shares to Etisalat, the UAE telecom giant, for US $900 million (approximately Rs 4,500 crore). Swan Telecom was earlier known as Swan Capital and owned by Anil Ambani. In 2007, this company was taken over by Maharashtra based real estate entrepreneurs Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka. There are rumours in telecom circles that the takeover by Balwa and Goenka was felicitated by Raja.

Unitech, another real estate company, too reaped a bumper harvest without investing a penny in telecom infrastructure.The company got licences to operate in 22 circles for Rs 1,651 crore. Within weeks, it sold 60 per cent of its shares for Rs 6,120 crore to the Norwegian company Telenor, currently a major telecom player in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Unitech had applied for licences in several names — Unitech Infrastructure, Unitech Builders and Estates, Aska Projects, Nahan Properties, Hudson Properties, Volga Properties, Adonis Projects and Azare Properties among them. They were able to merge all their licences when Telecom Minister Raja signed another dubious notification allowing this to happen. Valued at a whopping Rs 60,000 crore, the 2G spectrum allocation scam is perhaps the mother of all scams in India.

After he became Telecom Minister, A Raja allotted 2G spectrum to new entrants in the telecom sector at throwaway prices. Spectrum allotted in the beginning of 2008 was sold at rates fixed in 2001. This happened in spite of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI’s) — and the Finance Ministry’s — vehement objections. There was also no auction, and licences were given on a shabby ‘first come first serve’ basis. Third, the entire procedure lacked Cabinet approval, even though deals involving such huge sums of money require mandatory approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.

Even as the allegations broke out, Raja kept insisting he was sticking to the rulebook. He justified his decisions saying he was trying to break the cartelisation in the telecom sector, and claimed that the ‘aam aadmi’ would benefit by his actions. Even his party chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi rubbished the allegations against Raja, saying that leaders of certain political parties could not tolerate the rise of a Dalit.A series of investigative reports by this newspaper, however, suggested otherwise. The Telecom Minister’s money parking methods — by floating companies in the names of close relatives — was soon out in the open. After Raja became a Union Minister in 2004, many of his close relatives started real estate companies. Companies like Green House Promoters, Equaas Estates and Kovai Shelters Promoters have Raja’s brothers, nephews and nieces as directors on their boards. The Minister even got his wife, MA Parameswari, appointed on the board of directors for Green House and Equaas Estates. This he did by violating another code — the service rules and the code of conduct for Ministers.

As a Cabinet Minister, Raja had to inform the Prime Minister about his wife’s business, and file a mandatory affidavit saying there was no clash of interest in the discharge of his duties. He did neither. The Minister now defends himself by saying the entries with the Registrar of Companies are wrong, and that he and his wife were not aware that she was a director in Equaas! Equaas Estates’ domestic turnover, on the other hand, showed more than Rs 755 crore in its very first year. Even this, Raja now says, was a “wrong entry” in the books of the Registrar of Companies. Meanwhile, Green House Promoters, one of the many companies with Raja’s relatives on its board, opened an office in Singapore in violation of Indian foreign exchange norms. And one director of Kovai Shelters, Dr R Sridhar, a nephew of the Telecom Minister, holds a 15 per cent share in the company despite being a Class I officer in the Ministry of Environment.

In earlier instances, Raja often defended himself by saying Swan and Unitech were Maharashtra and Delhi-based companies, and no one from Tamil Nadu was associated with them. Documents filed with the Registrar of Companies, Mumbai, however, prove otherwise. On December 17, 2008, Swan allotted Rs 380 crore worth of shares to the Chennai-based Genex Exim Ventures, a company floated just four months ago with a meagre capital of Rs 1 lakh. According to the documents available with the Registrar of Companies, Chennai, Genex was incorporated on September 17, 2008 with two directors — Mohammed Hassan (58) and Ahamed Shakir (41) — who came from Kilukarai, a small coastal village in Ramanathapuram district in Tamil Nadu. Ahmed Syed Salahuddin (32), who represented the company on the board of Swan, also came from the same village.

There is more indication of the Tamil Nadu link. Ahmed Syed Salahuddin, who represented the company on the board of Swan, is the younger son of Syed Mohammed Salahuddin, an NRI businessman who heads the Dubai-based real estate conglomerate ETA Ascon Star Group. This group began its Indian operations in 2006 by floating several real estate firms across the State. Raja was then Union Environment Minister, and his party DMK had assumed power in Tamil Nadu. ETA signed an MoU with the Tamil Nadu Government for setting up an IT Special Economic Zone worth Rs 3,750 crore when A Raja became Union Telecom Minister in May 2007. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi was present at the MoU signing ceremony for the proposed project at Kancheepuram, near Chennai, on a nearly 500 acre plot.It seems mysterious that a large business group entered Swan’s board through a company with a meagre
Rs 1 lakh paid up capital. Incidentally, Genex Exim has not filed any document with the authorities to show its source of income, even after acquiring Rs 380 crore worth of shares of Swan Telecom.

How Raja had blatantly favoured Swan was evident from a rather unusual deal struck between that company and the state-owned BSNL. This “intra-circle roaming deal”, signed between the two companies on September 13, 2008, was literally silent when it came to money. According to the MoU, Swan could use spectrum, communication towers and the entire network of BSNL free of cost. Though the BSNL management suggested charging 52 paise per call, this clause was mysteriously absent in the MoU. BSNL was forced to sign this deal just 10 days before the sale of Swan’s shares to Etisalat. It helped swell Swan’s coffers without the company investing a single rupee.BSNL had never entered into an “intra-circle roaming deal” with any operator till then. When controversy broke out, BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Kuldeep Goyal sought to quell the trouble by coining a new word for it — a “Limited MoU”!

Meanwhile, Raja shunted out all senior officials in BSNL and the Wireless Planning Co-ordination (WPC) wing of the Telecom Department who objected to the deal. Top telecom officials alerted the Prime Minister, but nothing came out of it. Even a Congress MP, Dharam Pal Sabharwal, wrote to Manmohan Singh in November 2008, but with no result. Another letter written to the Prime Minister by CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury in February 2008 clearly warned of a “scam in the offing” when more than 575 real estate companies and stock broking firms approached the Telecom Ministry for spectrum licences. All this while, Raja kept insisting that he had the approval of the Prime Minister.

The Telecom Minister even blatantly lied in Parliament when he said his decisions on 2G spectrum allocation were never objected to by TRAI or the Finance Ministry.The unreformed Raja was also eager to allot 3G (Third Generation) spectrum before the end of his tenure. His attempts, however, came to naught after the Government decided to refer the 3G auction to a Group of Ministers. Earlier scheduled for January 16, the date was changed to January 30 and has now been deferred indefinitely after the intervention of the Cabinet Secretary, who suggested a “thorough study” into the process.

Current developments however suggest that the auction may not take place during the tenure of this Government. The question that arises now is, who authorised Raja to announce the auction dates in advance, before getting a Cabinet clearance?Although he was aware of Raja’s corrupt ways, it was perhaps the compulsions of coalition politics that kept Prime Minister Manmohan Singh away from stepping in and setting things right. For, observers believe, every time he summoned Raja, Raja’s party chief Karunanidhi landed in Delhi and dashed off to the Congress leadership, asking it to keep the Prime Minister quiet. This is perhaps what happened on December 4, 2008 when Karunanidhi landed in Delhi with a multi-party delegation to raise the issue of the ‘plight’ of Sri Lankan Tamils. The delegation met the Prime Minister at 10 am. An hour later, the DMK chief met Sonia Gandhi along with his daughter Kanimozhi — this time separately. Even his close confidant, Union Minister TR Baalu, was asked to leave after the photo session. After the meeting, Karunanidhi held a Press conference where he said he had discussed the Sri Lankan issue with the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi. Sceptic Tamil leaders, however, wonder why were not allowed to participate in the talks with Sonia Gandhi when they were all present in the meeting with the Prime Minister. Many of them believe that Karunanidhi had in fact asked for Sonia Gandhi’s ‘help’ in sharing the burden of the spectrum scam during that meeting.

http://jgopikrishnan.blogspot.com/2009/03/spectrum-scandal-and-telecom-ministers.html

Firm with Rs.1 Lakh gets Rs.380 Cr Swan shares

When the 2G spectrum controversy broke out and allegations of covert deals surfaced in awarding licences to Unitech and Swan, a defensive Union Telecom Minister A Raja had claimed that no person from Tamil Nadu, and least of all he, was associated with or knew any of the firms. “These all are west Indian and north Indian companies. How can you say I have favoured them? These companies do not even belong to Tamil Nadu,” he had told reporters on several occasions.

But documents available with The Pioneer refute the Minister’s claims of innocence in the matter.The links with Swan get established through a Chennai-based firm, Genex Exim Ventures Private Limited, which was formed four months ago with a paid-up capital of just Rs 1 lakh. Entirely out of proportion to its size, Genex was on December 17, 2008, allotted shares in Swan Telecom worth a little over Rs 380 crore.

It may be recalled that Swan was one of the firms that was awarded the 2G licence on a first-come-first-served basis and, that too, on a licence fee fixed seven years ago. The resulting controversy impacted the 3G spectrum bidding process, which has been put on hold by the Union Government despite the Union Telecom Minister’s desire for a speedy allotment.According to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies in Chennai, Genex was incorporated on September 17, 2008, with two directors — Mohammed Hassan (58) and Ahamed Shakir (41). The company was represented by Ahmed Syed Salahuddin (32) on the board of Swan. The three belong to Kilukarai, a small coastal village in Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu.

The Tamil Nadu link now gets strengthened. Ahmed Syed Salahuddin is the younger son of Syed Mohammed Salahuddin, an NRI business tycoon heading the Dubai-based real estate conglomerate, ETA Ascon Star Group, which began its Indian operations in 2006 by floating several real estate firms across the State. Raja was then the Union Environment Minister and his party, the DMK, had assumed power in Tamil Nadu.

The ETA Group entered into an MoU with the Tamil Nadu Government for setting up an IT Special Economic Zone worth Rs 3,750 crore when A Raja became the Union Telecom Minister in May 2007. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi was present at the much-hyped MoU-signing ceremony for the project. It was proposed at Kancheepuram, near Chennai, on almost a 500-acre plot.It is mysterious that a major business group should enter Swan’s board through a company with a meagre Rs 1 lakh paid-up capital. Incidentally, Genex Exim, having acquired more than 10 per cent of Swan Telecom shares, has not filed any document with the authorities to show its source of income. When contacted, a representative of the company refused comment.

Earlier, Swan’s plan to invest in Green House Promoters Private Limited, a firm run by Raja’s relatives, fell apart after The Pioneer reported the dubiousness of the deal on December 15, 2008.

According to the list of allottees filed by Swan with the Registrar of Companies in Mumbai, 1,33,17,245 shares having a nominal value of Rs 10 were allotted to Genex Exim at a premium of Rs 276 per share. Etisalat, one of the UAE’s major telecom players, was allotted shares in Swan. Etisalat was given shares worth more than Rs 3,000 crore through its Mauritius-based unit. Besides, 11,29,94,228 shares were allotted to Etisalat while the founder shareholder, Tiger Trustees, kept 1,73,01,463 shares worth Rs 495 crore with itself.

http://jgopikrishnan.blogspot.com/2009/03/spectrum-scandal-and-telecom-ministers.html

Raja’s kin in Govt job, but still on pvt firm roll

Minister’s Dy. Director nephew has major stakes as director in real estate company

The presence of Union Telecom Minister A Raja's close family members in private companies raised a political storm recently after The Pioneer revealed how the Minister, in contravention of rules, concealed the information from the Prime Minister. While the Minister then wriggled out by offering lame excuses, he would have some explaining to do about the latest revelation: His nephew Dr R Sridhar, who happens to be a deputy director in the Ministry of Environment & Forests, is also a director with significant stakes in a private limited company. He was selected for the Government post during Raja’s tenure as the Environment & Forests Minister.

Just like his uncle, Dr Sridhar also flouted the service rules when he failed to inform the Government before joining its service that he was a director with 15 per cent stakes in Kovai Shelters Promotors (Private) Limited. Incidentally, he continues to be a director with the Coimbatore-based real estate firm, established in January 2007 and headed by the Minister’s associate from his Peramballur constituency, Dr C Krishnamoorthy.

Not just that, Section 13 of the All India Services (Conduct) Rules bars a Government servant from having any interest in any private business or company. But, sources said, Sridhar never informed the Government of his being on the board of the private company. When The Pioneer contacted Sridhar for his reaction, he said, “I cannot comment right now. I have to check with Kovai Shelters.” He brushed off the important matter of holding private business interests while serving as a Class I Government officer. “I am busy now. I told you I have to consult my people,” he said.Sources in the Ministry told The Pioneer that Raja, then Environment & Forests Minister, had taken a keen interest in his nephew's recruitment soon after the company was formed. They added that though the 29-year Sridhar lacked the mandatory five-year work experience, he was selected for the post on the basis of a dubious certificate of experience.

“Sridhar (who did his doctorate in marine biology) produced a certificate from his guide, Dr L Kannan, that he had been assisting him for the past five years. Though we objected to the claim, we were forced to oblige the Minister under pressure,” sources added. Kannan is currently the Vice-Chancellor of Thiruvalluvar University in Tamil Nadu. Sridhar joined the Government’s service in November 2007 after obtaining the requisite clearances for the appointment of Class I officers. Sources said that he concealed the information of his private business all through the inquiry process.

Apart from Sridhar, Raja’s nieces R Anandabhuvaneswari and R Santhanlakshmi also have a 15 per cent share each in the real estate firm.Krishnamoorthy also owns a Coimbatore-based finance company, AGM Investment and Finance Private Limited, along with his brother C Sathyanarayan. They bought the firm in November 2004, soon after Raja became a Cabinet Minister. Incidentally, prior to becoming a Minister, Raja operated his law business in Peramballur from the first-floor office of Krishnamoorthy’s building.

The Pioneer has already reported the saga of two companies owned by Union Telecom Minister Raja’s close relatives. Green House Promoters (Private) Limited and Equaas Estates (Private) Limited were floated soon after Raja became a Union Minister. His wife Parameswari also served as a director on the Board of these two firms. Flouting rules, Raja had not filed information about his wife’s business to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Raja’s nephews RP Paramesh Kumar, R Ramganesh, brother A Kalia Perumal and niece Malarvizhi Ram are the directors of these two companies.

http://jgopikrishnan.blogspot.com/2009/03/spectrum-scandal-and-telecom-ministers.html

Why is BSNL sharing spectrum with pvt players?

Minister Raja makes company infrastructure available to competitors almost free. We have seen how Telecom Minister A Raja facilitated spectrum allotment to a bunch of private players on first-come-first-served basis. His decision resulted in a raging controversy, leading to the demands for his resignation and parliamentary probe into a range of affairs, including the business interests of his immediate family members. It now appears that the enterprising Minister had not just facilitated the spectrum allotment; his benign attitude went farther - in persuading the Ministry’s flagship unit, the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), to help out one of the licencees, Swan Telecom.

Within weeks of allotting the spectrum licence to Swan, Raja helped it have a strategic arrangement with the State-owned BSNL, literally for free. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) on September 13 between BSNL and Swan, called the Intra-Circle Roaming Agreement, does not indicate even a nominal sum that BSNL is charging for sharing its infrastructure. Incidentally, this is the first deal of its kind that the BSNL has entered into with any private player.The BSNL has been rather secretive of its charitable attitude towards Swan. Its Website does not have a word on this important development wherein a public organisation offers its services for free to a private party.

BSNL chairman and managing director Kuldeep Goyal confirmed the arrangement and termed it a “limited MoU”. Talking to The Pioneer, he said he could specify what charges BSNL planned to levy for providing the unprecedented intra-circle roaming facility to a private operator.When asked specifically on charges that BSNL may seek from Swan, Goyal replied, “See, this is only a limited MoU. No agreement has been signed with them. Swan has not yet started its operations. We are working out the details. I can’t tell you all details of the MoU. The money part will be specific in due course of time. I don’t know how much money we are going to levy on them. I told you this is only a limited MoU; specifics will be discussed when we come to a final agreement.”

The Pioneer has learned through highly-placed sources that the high-level management committee of BSNL had recommended 52 paisa per call from Swan for providing the intra-circle roaming facility. But this recommendation found no mention in the “limited MoU”.Sources further informed The Pioneer that the “limited MoU” greatly helped Swan in later sewing up the deal with the UAE-based telecom company Etisalat, which picked up stake in Swan for a reported sum of $900 million (approximately Rs 4,500 crore) in October.Some officers of the Wireless Planning and Co-ordination (WPC) section in Sanchar Bhavan, who objected to the BSNL-Swan deal, were shunted out. Joint Wireless Adviser RJS Kushwaha and Deputy Wireless Adviser D Jha were transferred out for questioning the arrangement. Telecom officials say Swan is expected to benefit to the tune of at least Rs 1,000 crore since it would not have to invest in infrastructure.

http://jgopikrishnan.blogspot.com/2009/03/spectrum-scandal-and-telecom-ministers.html

Zero to Rs 755 crore in a Year !

Telecom Minister family firm sets record turnover - Spectrum allottees investing?

The Pioneer had on Thursday reported that Union Telecom Minister A Raja’s wife MA Parameswari, a director in Green House Promoters Private Limited, used the Minister’s official residential address as her business address. This daily also noted that Raja had failed to file a ‘non-conflict of interest’ affidavit or inform Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the business interests of his wife and other relatives. Parameswari was the company’s director till February 2008.

But this was not the only time the Minister had slipped on a mandatory requirement; he had apparently ‘forgotten’ to submit the required details when Parameswari first became a director in another company, Equaas Estates Private Limited, a real estate firm like Green House, which was established in September 2004.And as in the Green House case, the managing director of this company too was Raja’s confidant, Sadhick Batcha, from the Minister’s Perambalur constituency. Raja’s nephew RP Paramesh Kumar became the joint managing director. And, like the earlier firm, this company was also based in Chennai.

According to documents available with The Pioneer, it is this company which recorded a huge ‘domestic’ turnover of Rs 755 crore in the very first year of its operations.There is no mention in the documents filed with the Registrar of Companies about the source of this turnover. Form 23AC — to be filled by private limited companies for filing balance sheets/profit and loss statements with the Registrar of Companies — does not give any information on the following heads mentioned in the form: Sale of the goods manufactured; sale of the goods traded and sale or supply of the services. The form does not even indicate elsewhere how the turnover was achieved.

But talking about Green House, highly-placed sources in the Telecom Ministry told The Pioneer that Swan Telecom Private Limited, which has been in the news for being allotted in a controversial manner the 2G Spectrum licence, was likely to invest in Green House Promoters Private Limited — managed, as known, by relatives and close associates of the Telecom Minister. According to these sources, Swan planned to invest in 49 per cent equity in Green House at a dictated price of Rs 1,000 crore. To facilitate this financial deal, Greenhouse and Swan officials were reportedly working together with a Chennai-based audit firm.

When The Pioneer spoke to Sadhick Batcha over telephone, he confirmed that Green House was in an expansion mode. He also said the company was considering investment offers made by some firms. But when specifically asked whether Swan was one of these firms, he refused to confirm. The managing director said, “We are expanding but I cannot reveal the name of companies that are investing in Green House.” He directed this paper to contact one Kevin, ‘business adviser’ of Green House.Kevin, on his part, was equally cautious. “Green House is in talks for expansion. But I cannot confirm the names that are going to invest.”

Despite repeated attempts by The Pioneer, Swan Telecom managing director Shahid Balwa was not available for comment.“He will get back to you after some time. Currently, he is in a meeting,” said a person, who picked up his cellular phone. Balwa, however, did not return the call.It may be recalled that Swan Telecom bagged the licence for Rs 1,537 crore for operating in 13 circles in October. Within weeks, it sold 45 per cent of its shares to Etisalat, the UAE telecom giant, for $900 million (approximately Rs 4,500 crore). Swan Telecom’s roots can be traced back to July 2006, when it was established in the name of Swan Capital Private Limited.

The Mumbai-based firm, then part of a leading corporate house, was involved in non-banking financial services. The company applied for a GSM circle licence in January 2007. A month later, in February 2007, it changed its name to Swan Telecom Private Limited. In October 2007, the corporate house, that was already a strong name in the CDMA sector, quit the firm after the Centre announced a new telecom policy that allowed one company to operate both GSM and CDMA services. Two entrepreneurs - from the real estate sector — acquired Swan Telecom Private Limited. Balwa and Vinod Kumar Goenka became the new owners of the company. Balwa became the company’s managing director. Politically well connected, the young Balwa had been operating his real estate business from Mumbai.Unitech, another real estate company, also entered into a bumper deal without investing anything in telecom infrastructure. The company got a licence to operate in 22 circles for Rs 1,651 crore.

Within weeks of acquiring the circles, it sold 60 per cent shares for Rs 6,120 crore to a Norwegian company, Telenor, which is a major telecom player in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Unitech’s story, therefore, is not unlike Swan’s, which too disposed of part of its shares to a prominent foreign telecom firm after getting the 2G licence, in the process netting a huge profit.Interestingly, like Unitech and Swan, a number of real estate firms suddenly developed keen interest in the telecom sector over the last two years, virtually coinciding with Raja’s tenure at Sanchar Bhavan. This had upset the existing telecom operators, some of whom even complained to the Prime Minister over the reported ‘irregularities’ that followed.

The Minister, on his part, had justified the move, saying that he had attempted to break a powerful telecom operators’ cartel that had been working against public interest.Raja, Green House deny chargesUnion Telecom Minister A Raja has strongly denied any wrongdoing in the 2G spectrum allocation issue. Reacting to Thursday’s report of The Pioneer, Raja said he had nothing to do with the affairs of Green House Promoters Private Limited, the firm mentioned in the report, although his family members were part of its business. Green House too has denied in writing any irregularity.

The Minister said, “My wife, as an advocate, worked with them as the director (legal). She neither has any investment, nor attended any meetings.” He ruled out his involvement with the company, though he admitted to his close relatives being part of the firm. Sadhick Batcha, the MD of Green House, also said Raja’s wife was not a director of the board. “With regard to her involvement, I would like to clarify that she was appointed the director (legal) to advise on legal issues. She neither has any shares nor any involvement in the day-to-day management of the company,” he stated.

http://jgopikrishnan.blogspot.com/2009/03/spectrum-scandal-and-telecom-ministers.html


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Spectrum Scandal and Telecom Minister's covert activities

[Following are the reports published in 'The Pioneer' daily on the Specutrum scandal and violations by the Telecom Minister A.Raja by floating several companies, flooded with family family members]

How to become a crorepati overnight

When the spectrum controversy began to spin out of control and Telecom Minister A Raja was recently attacked by political leaders from within the UPA and outside for his questionable decisions, his mentor and DMK leader M Karunanidhi condemned the critics as people who could “not tolerate the rise of a humble Dalit”. As it turns out, the ‘humble Dalit’ allowed his ministerial clout and official address to be used for businesses which later connected with the spectrum deal, now under the scanner of the high court and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).

Not only did a commercial organisation, with the Minister’s wife as a director, begin operating from his official residence, well-placed sources said the information was concealed from the Prime Minister in violation of Service Rules. The Minister did not also deem it necessary to file an affidavit of ‘non-conflict of interest’ between his family’s business activities and his role as a Union Minister. In course of time, the address was changed and his wife officially withdrew from the firm. But the company’s association with the Raja family continued as closely as before, with the shares distributed among his kith and kin.

Green House Promoters Private Limited was formed barely four months after Raja became a Cabinet Minister (in charge of Environment and Forests) for the first time in May 2004. The Chennai-based real estate company was floated with an initial capital of only Rs 1 lakh, with AM Sadhick Batcha — a close associate of Raja — as managing director and Sadhick’s wife Reha Banu as a director. Sadhick hails from the Minister’s Perambalur constituency in Tamil Nadu. Documents filed with the Registrar of Companies show that Raja’s close relatives — such as his brother, nephew, niece and a few others — subsequently became directors in the company. With these high-profile inductions, the share capital of the firm surged to a respectable Rs 3 crore within 14 months of the operations being launched.Three years later, in February 2007, the Minister’s wife, MA Parameswari, was added to the board as a director.

Raja neither informed the Prime Minister of his wife’s and other relatives’ business activities, which he was mandated to do according to the Services (Conduct) Rules, nor filed an affidavit assuring there would not be a conflict of interest between his duties as a Minister and the business deals of his wife and other relatives.Even as Green House Promoters Private Limited continued to expand its real estate activities in Tamil Nadu (and Karnataka), with the Minister’s official residence doubling up as his wife’s business address, Raja was jolted by a report in early 2008 in a section of the media that pulled up the then Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil for using his official address as the business address for his son. Sensing trouble ahead, Raja got into damage control mode. His wife resigned from the directorship of the company on February 2008, but not before transferring her shares to another relative.

Documents available with The Pioneer show the shares were transferred to Raja’s niece, Malarvizhi. The 29-year-old is the wife of Raja’s nephew, a Government pleader in Tamil Nadu. The joint managing director of Green House is Raja’s elder nephew RP Paramesh Kumar. The Minister’s brother, A Kaliaperumal, is also a director of Green House. Another director of this company is R Ram Ganesh, the 22-year-old son of Raja’s elder brother A Ramchandran, who is an Indian Forest Service officer.From a humble beginning of Rs 1 lakh, the company soon soared to great heights.

One of the Green House company’s accounts at Canara Bank’s T Nagar branch in Chennai had remittances of more than Rs 150 crore over the last four years. The money came from the Middle East, Hong Kong and Singapore, besides India, though it remains unclear why these remittances were made.As the volume of business transactions increased, the company opened an office in Singapore in 2006. According to sources, it was done to cut down on the direct flow of funds into its Indian accounts and escape public scrutiny.The failure to inform the Prime Minister and file an affidavit was not a one-time lapse or an ‘oversight’ by Raja.

Wife Parameswari and the Minister’s relatives became active partners in another company floated a month after Green House came to exist. Breaching rules again, Raja did not inform the Prime Minister and filed no affidavit of non-conflict of interest. The new company, once again dealing in real estate, had a miraculously high turnover of Rs 755 crore in its very first year of operation.

http://jgopikrishnan.blogspot.com/2009/03/spectrum-scandal-and-telecom-ministers.html
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