As part of its probe into alleged irregularities into the conduct of the Commonwealth Games, the CBI on Wednesday registered an FIR against several accused persons, including former officials of the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), for the alleged award of a broadcast network contract at an exorbitant rate of `570.12 crores to a Noida-based private firm.
According to sources the MTNL officials allegedly manipulated the contract’s tendering process and the specifications. Immediately after registering the case, CBI officials conducted searches at the residential premises of MTNL’s the then CMD R.S.P. Sinha, executive director S.M. Talwar, GM (Corporate Sales) N.K. Jain and DGM Jitendra Garg in Delhi, Noida, Jaipur and Patna.
Sources said, “During searches, documents relating to immovable and movable property belonging to accused persons and other incriminating documents were also recovered”. The agency has registered the case against former officials of MTNL and private companies dealing in Optical Fibre Transmission on the charges of criminal conspiracy and provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act, said CBI spokesperson Dharini Mishra.
“It is alleged that MTNL awarded the work of broadcast network based on certain specific technology (IP/MPLS) at an exorbitant price of approximately `570.12 crores by manipulating specifications in such a manner as to make them tailor made for the bidders,” sources said.
Though the broadcasting data transmission requirements for CWG-2010 were very limited, based on optical fiber transmission, for which an initial estimate of approximately `31.43 crores was prepared, the MTNL in their proposal allegedly enhanced the network costing by `380 crores, sources said.