2 plots in Noida, 1 plot in Greater Noida, 2 plots and a house in Ghaziabad, 2 plots in Kanpur, 2 houses in Lucknow and 1 plot in Hapur. This is not a real estate advertisement but listings in the Immoveable Property Return (IPR) of Nitishwar Kumar, the Private Secretary to the Minister of Communications, Manoj Sinha. Of the 11 properties, 10 properties are registered in his wife’s name and one property is registered in his daughter’s name. Crucial information regarding the acquisitions, which ought to be filed as per All India Service (Conduct) Rules, are missing. Also Mr Kumar has under-valued the present market value of the properties in his IPR. Through a systematic investigation complete with a photo file, we have pieced together this huge asset base. Mr Kumar is a 1996 batch IAS officer from the UP cadre and has been working with Mr Sinha from the time he became MoS, Railways on June 24, 2014. When Mr Sinha assumed the independent charge of the telecom ministry, he (Mr Kumar) continued to be his PS at both the ministries.
Meenakshy Thakur, w/o Nitishwar Kumar, who is an Additional GM at the Solar Energy Corporation of India Ltd (SECI), had no answer as to how she came to acquire these properties. She was more eager to know as to how we got her number and in fielding the ‘busy’ schedule of her husband, something that made it difficult for him to look at mails. A mail had been sent to Mr Kumar. He did not respond. When Mrs Thakur was apprised of this, she said she would ask her husband to respond, but there was nothing by the time this edition of TelecomLive was going into publication.
The other big investigative story of this issue concerns BSNL, about how its top management is moving out money to private vendors through contracts on nomination basis and relaxations, all of which inflict a financial drain of several hundred crores of rupees on BSNL and a huge gain for the private vendors. We have looked at enormous amount of documents that reveal how benefits were plotted and harvested for private vendors. AMC Contracts were awarded to UTStarcom for end of life equipment, Repair Not Possible limits were enhanced, and procurements made based on proposals mooted by the vendor, or on nomination basis. Similarly, BSNL has given additional contracts on nomination basis to ZTE. These are worth Rs 2,323 cr and are in violation of tender and CVC norms.
