Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac on Thursday slammed Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala for “attempting” to tarnish the High Tech and IT@School projects.
In a Facebook post, Dr. Isaac said Mr. Chennithala had leaned on a “dubious” newspaper report to suggest without producing a shred of evidence that “gold smugglers” had, through questionable means, bagged the contract for supplying 1,10,000 laptops and 60,000 projectors for high-tech classrooms in State-funded schools across Kerala.
Dr. Isaac said the government had invited original equipment manufacturers or one of their authorised representatives to participate in the bid. Acer, Dell, HP, and Lenovo took part in the bidding.
‘Produce proof’
Mr. Chennithala had said one Varikodan Abdul Hameed, a “suspect” in the gold smuggling case, had won the bid. Dr. Isaac challenged Mr. Chennithala to produce proof.
Dr. Isaac said Mr. Chennithala had also alleged without furnishing any evidence that K.T. Rameez, one of the main accused in the gold smuggling case, had sourced school modernisation funds to bankroll the illegal imports of gold via a diplomatic channel to Kerala from Dubai. He had based the claim on anonymous newspaper reports. Dr. Isaac invited Mr. Chennithala to present evidence to back the claim.
Dr. Isaac said the firm that won the bid would also install the equipment and execute the annual maintenance contract. Mr. Chennithala’s allegations were unfounded, and it was an insult to the student, parent, and teaching community in the State.
Dr. Isaac said Mr. Chennithala had without a shred of evidence claimed that the computers and projectors installed at schools were “e-waste”. He pointed out that a committee headed by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) director G. Jayasankar; senior technical director of National Informatics Centre; and head of the SeMT (State e-Governance Mission Team) division of the IT Department had set the specification for the computers.
