The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has asked the department of telecommunications (DoT) to furnish it with a list of all the repeat orders that were placed on companies during former communications minister, Sukh Ram's tenure. DoT sources confirmed this here yesterday.
After going through the files made available to it and interrogation of suspended DoT official Runu Ghosh and Patalu Rama Rao, managing director of Hyderabad-based ARM Ltd, the investigating agency is learnt to have asked for a list of repeat orders. Directors and assistant directors in the procurement section of DoT are compiling the list.
Repeat orders are placed on companies at the price quoted in the last tender for the equipment concerned. These are designed to procure equipment without going through the tender route which takes anything between three months to a year to finalise.
The CBI has asked for the list of repeat orders because it feels that there appears to be gross misuse of the repeat orders, DoT sources said. Normally the procedure followed within DoT is that whenever a repeat order is placed on companies, a price negotiation committee is set up to examine this aspect for the supply of equipment. This norm was violated in Sukh Ram's tenure, sources said.
Moreover, even in the case of orders which were placed after long periods (sometimes as long as two years), DoT decided to go in for repeat orders on companies shortlisted in previous tenders. "If the objective is indeed to save on time, how is it that such orders were placed after such long gaps?" a government official asked.
For instance, in a 1992-93 tender, DoT placed an order for the supply of 3,500 sets of 2 GHz radios, more than half of which went to some 16 companies including HFCL, Shyam Telecom and ARM based on the low prices they had quoted. Then almost three years later in 1995, the department decided to place a repeat order of 1,500 sets of the same equipment at a price slightly lower than the previous tender on three companies: HFCL, Shyam Telcom and Fujitsu Optel.
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HFCL sources say that the repeat order was placed on the three companies because they were the only ones with type approval. Rival companies which did not get any orders in this repeat order claim that if a tender was opened, they would have obtained type approvals.
Meanwhile, S K Jain, deputy director general (transmission planning) of DoT, has been issued transfer orders. He has been asked to join the MTNL at Delhi. Kranti Kumar from the northern telecom
region of DoT has been asked to
replace Jain. DoT sources expect more transfers in the procurement section.
