by Nava Thakuria 1 August 2022
When a second first information report (FIR) was filed by the outgoing
State coordinator of National Register of Citizens (NRC) against his
predecessor alleging corruption and money laundering while updating
the 1951 NRC in Assam of northeast India, nobody thought it would
bring out a hot media debate among the social media users. NRC State
coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma, who is retiring soon, lodged the
complaint with the Assam government’s vigilance and anti-corruption
wing accusing Prateek Hajela, who earlier served as the State NRC
coordinator, of money laundering. Hajela, an Indian Administrative
Services officer- presently serving Madhya Pradesh government- is an
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi graduate and cleared IAS in 1995
(Assam-Meghalaya cadre). He was appointed by the Tarun Gogoi’s
Congress government in 2013 as the State NRC coordinator following an
order of the Supreme Court of India.
Leaving aside Hajela’s probable individual dishonesty, the issue of
corruption touched some Guwahati-based television editor-journalists
too. So the questions are being raised, if some media persons are
involved in a financial scam, shouldn’t the people get an opportunity
to identify them? As the mainstream newspapers and news channels of
Assam are avoiding the issue in their coverage, how come the actual
picture will come to the public domain? If the media outlets
intentionally kill the news, reasons best known to the editors, should
the social media users take a lead? A number of social media users
(many of them are senior journalists with decades long experience)
highlighted the issue and the message was loud and clear ‘to identify
the corrupt television journalists who grabbed a huge amount of money
which is actually meant for thousands of Assamese professionals’.
The issue is amazing. Dev Sarma, also an IAS officer, claimed in his
complaint that the engaged system integrator (Wipro Limited) indulged
in corruption while updating the 1951 NRC in Assam (the process began
in 2014 under supervision of the country’s apex court). In his
complaint on 13 June 2022, Dev Sarma asserted that a huge financial
mismanagement had taken place during Hajela’s tenure as the NRC head.
He added that for conducting the NRC updation process, Wipro (system
integrator) was given the task of supplying data entry operators
(DEOs). It was not permitted to subcontract any activities related to
system design & development, deployment and enhancement of NRC
software solution, data centre operation, etc. But Wipro engaged
sub-contractors for providing data entry operators without any prior
approval from the appropriate authority.
“From the office record, it was found that the then State coordinator
was aware of the fact that the sub-contractors were being used to
gather DEOs, though he did not officially approve the particular
proposal,” said Dev Sarma in his complaint. The Wipro was paid Rupees
14,500 to 17,500 per month per DEO (by the NRC authority), but ‘the
DEOs got only Rs 5,500 to 9,100 per month’ during the years (2015 to
2019), added Dev Sarma asserting that the DEOs were denied even the
least amount as per the country’s minimum wage act. Some DEOs even
came to the streets demanding their due amounts. They claimed that out
of 7000 young workers, a large number of DEOs were deprived of their
money, where the entire NRC updation process in Assam cost Rs 1,600
crore (paid by the government authority). The DEOs also approached the
State labour commissioner office with demands for their legal and
regular payments. They also suspected some non-existent DEOs, who were
also shown as duly paid.
Even the Accountant General of Assam in a provisional audit report
observed that ‘the difference of margin ranged from 45.59 to 64.27
percent was exorbitant and audit assessed that undue benefit of Rs
155.83 crore was allowed to SI/labour contractor after allowing 10
percent reasonable profit margin to the contractor’. Describing the
undue benefit to the tune of Rs 155.83 crore, Dev Sarma asserted in
his FIR that it’s reasonable to suspect that kickbacks and money
laundering must have occurred in the process. The provisional audit
report also identified an ‘avoidable expenditure to the tune of Rs
10.73 crore’ in connection with the engagement of third-party
monitoring consultants. As per the amended delegation of financial
power rules, for the expenditure of more than Rs five crore, the then
State coordinator should have obtained an approval from the empowered
committee, headed by the chief secretary, or from the Registrar
General of India.
But the then State coordinator engaged the consultants without taking
approval from the concerned authority, added it. Citing the same audit
report, where it observed that ‘entire expenditure of Rs 10.73 crore
made against the engagement of consultants was unjustified and
avoidable which resulted in extra burden to the government exchequer
and undue benefit to the SI (Wipro) to that extent’, Dev Sarma claimed
that a large volume of government money was siphoned off in a
fraudulent manner. A reliable source in the State NRC office, informed
that at least three editor- anchor-journalists of Assamese satellite
news channels were also beneficiaries to the financial irregularities.
Those media persons took sub-contracts to supply DEOs and got a
sizable percentage of money. It is understood that the large volume of
money, actually meant for DEOs, were fraudulently grabbed by those
television scribes.
Now will it be possible to identify those scamster scribes? If one
trusts in Dev Sarma, it’s yes. He mentioned in his FIR that one Proloy
Seal worked as a middleman in the entire process. Seal was neither an
employee of the State coordinator’s office nor a contractor engaged by
it. But his presence was always seen in the office. In reality he was
the key person in managing all the kickbacks, said Dev Sarma. He
argued that a detailed investigation into the transactions and
accounts/balance sheets of the concerned persons would prove the money
laundering and finally it would help in identifying corrupt
individuals including those television personalities. However the case
is yet to be officially registered and it has been ignored by the
concerned authority seemingly for the oppositions raised by a powerful
lobby. But the question remains, why the lobby is working against the
move to bring all those guilty individuals under the purview of laws.
And shockingly, no news channels and newspapers in Guwahati have shown
interest in following up the pertinent issue. Assam with over 30
million population supports over 30 morning daily newspapers in
different languages (many of those however vanished during the
Covid-19 induced lockdown) with a large number of Assamese periodicals
and magazines. Guwahati also supports nearly ten satellite news
channels (most of those are free-to-air). Their cumulative quality
readership (and viewership) may reach up to 3.5 million, but the
number of social media users in the state should cross 4.5 million.
Questions being raised in public domain, should not the people of
Assam (also the entire nation) enjoy their right to get a true picture
about the financial irregularities engineered during the NRC updation
process in the State?
Moreover, while the social media outlets are pouring the speculation
terming many editor-journalists as beneficiaries of the multi-crore
rupees NRC updation scam, should not it become the responsibility of
the concerned section to clarify its stand? Why not the so-called
celebrity editor-journalists (including the news channel proprietors)
come together to declare publicly that nobody from their organisations
were involved with the specific financial irregularities? If involved,
that would be his/her responsibility to defend in the concerned
platforms. The mysterious silence may be interpreted by the common
people (including the dedicated readers, audience and viewers of
mainstream media outlets) as all of them are either corrupt (who got
personal benefits out of the NRC corruption ) or cowardly in nature to
speak the truth. After all, what more they are waiting for !
The author is a Guwahati-based journalist, who writes for a number of
media outlets based in different parts of the globe.