Bhopal: The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Madhya Pradesh police has written to two state governments, two Union Territories and 26 public sector against a software company which was involved in an e-tendering scam in state.
Besides, the investigative agency has written to various government departments urging them to debar seven private firms from any tendering process in future.
The high court on Monday rejected bail pleas of three officials of OSMO IT Solution Pvt Limited, a Bhopal-based information technology firm, and an officer of MP State Electronic Development Corporation (MPSEDC), Nand Kumar Brahme, all arrested earlier in connection with the anomalies.
Meanwhile, the seven private firms based out of Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bhopal were found guilty of rigging the e-tendering process of Madhya Pradesh government in connivance with technical experts to get various government tenders.
“We have written to several government departments urging them to blacklist these private firms from the tendering process in future,” EOW Additional Director General KN Tiwari told News18 on Monday.
The senior officer said the agency would probe into 43 more e-tenders all of which were floated by the state government between 2016 and 2018.
The officer said the investigating agency had also contacted two states, two union territories and 26 PSUs over e-tendering scam as Antares Private Limited which offered the e-tendering platform to Madhya Pradesh government has also used its software in all those states, UTs and PSUs.
The private firm Antares Pvt Limited also featured in the FIR lodged by the EOW in connection with the multi-crore e-tendering scam.
The EOW has arrested three officers of OSMO IT Solutions for allegedly helping private firm rig the e-tenders in their favour, Officer of Special Duty Nand Kumar Brahme of MP State Electronics Development Corporation, Antares Project Manager Manohar M and a broker Manish Khare.
E-tendering was a major scam which surfaced in the later phase of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government when the state government had quashed nine tenders involving seven private firms and valued at Rs 3,000 crore.
The agency, however, was yet to find a political intervention in the scam and was looking into financial trails between the accused firms and those who helped them rig the tenders.
Then Managing Director of MPSEDC had acted as whistle-blower flagging anomalies in the e-tendering process after which the probe was handed over to Centre’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).
The Congress has kept alleging that frauds in e-tendering could be bigger than the Vyapam scam that had rocked the state a few years ago.
Comments
0 comment