The Crime Investigation Department (CID) has begun an investigation into an alleged financial scam involving crores of rupees by Siemens Industry Software India Ltd and Design Tech Systems Pvt Ltd, involving funds of the A.P. State Skill Development Corporation.
Cases have been booked against the then Special Secretary, Skill Development, Ghanta Subba Rao; the then director of APPSSDC K. Lakshminarayana; OSD and special officer to Secretary, Skill Development, Nimmagadda Venkata Krishna, and directors of Design Tech Systems Pvt Ltd and several others under various Sections of the IPC citing irregularities in the implementation of provisions of MoU between APSSDC and Siemens.
The CID conduccted searches at the offices and residences of the accused in Hyderabad and other States.
The MoU included provisions to set up six Centres of Excellence and 36 Technical Skill Development Institutions at an estimated cost of ₹3,356 crore, of which the technology partners would meet 90% of the cost of the project as grant in-kind and the State Government had to invest only 10%.
The G.O. was issued splitting the cost estimate and the 90% and 10% splitting of cost between the technology partners and the State Government respectively. However, after the issue of the orders, a tripartite agreement was prepared in such a manner that it was mentioned only that the Government of Andhra Pradesh would release ₹371 crores as a grant for SISW and Design Tech to set up the skill development institutions.
The release of ₹371 crore was done into the account of DesignTech even before the Skill development institutions were set up or the valuation of the work done. After that, with the alleged connivance of the officials of the Government of Andhra Pradesh and APSSDC, officials of SISW and Design Tech allegedly siphoned off a major portion of the amount without providing the commensurate goods and services.
Investigation conducted by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), Pune, in 2017-18, had reportedly established that at least ₹241 crore was allegedly misappropriated of the ₹371 crore fund given by the Government of A.P. The investigation further said that this was done through utilisation of fake invoices provided by affiliated shell companies, which were utilised to carry out a layered transmission of money, without actually providing any hardware, software, courseware, other goods/services, etc,.
Money was reportedly drawn out of the bank accounts and handed over to unknown persons allegedly through hawala transactions.
The CID investigation would look into if officials of APSSDC had violated rules in sanctioning the work order of ₹371 crore given on nomination basis, in violation of the General Financial rules, Central Vigilance Commission guidelines, etc., and by using a fraudulent modus operandi of generating fake invoices of shell companies with no actual business operations to siphon off the money.
