TelecomLive April 2024

IDC operations by NxtGen www.telecomlive.com 24 TelecomLIVE April 2024 unearth similar cases, and ascer- taining of financial loss toBSNL. Technical & Physical Audit at Mumbai On March 12, 2021 , Chi e f G e n e r a l M a n a g e r , B S N L , Maharashtra Circle constituted a four member committee under the chairmanship of Suhas Mankar, G M ( S & M / I T - B P ) B S N L , Maharashtra Circle and three DGM level officers, for Technical & Physical Audit of BSNL IDC Mumbai. The committee held its first meeting only on April 17, 2021, after 37 days, and visited IDC Mumbai site only after 49 days on April 29, 2021. Crucial time was lost for gathering evidence. The committee held its second & third meetings on April 17, 2021 andMay 20, 2021 and submitted its report to BSNL Corporate Office on May 21, 2021. In its report, the committee at number of places recorded non-cooperation in providing desired information by NxtGen. The committee identified eight customers which were not being billed by BSNL by comparing data provided by NxtGen and telecom service providers (TSPs). In its concluding remarks, it said that NxtGen is not completely honest, and there were many other customers hosted on BSNL IDC Mumbai which are not billed, and asked for audit by expert commit- tee. It also recommended to disallow remote access toNxtGen. The relevant parts of the report are reproduced as scan-4 at pg 25 to 27 and conc lus ion has been reproduced below: - “On perusal upon the docu- ments provided by the con- cerned parties during Physical & Technical Audit of BSNL IDC, Mumbai and verifying the evidence and analysing them on the merit within the purview of principle of natural justice, the Committee mem- bers, come to conclude that M/s NexGen is not completely honest with BSNL and beside eight customers listed above there may be many customers hosted in BSNL IDC, Mumbai without the knowledge of BSNL & hence BSNL has lost the revenue. Also we couldn't conclude which IDC Services are being offered to which customers & since when, due to lack of data. Further Investigation: The committee proposes that an explanation be sought from Nx tGen and a f t er de t a i l investigation through commit- tee, be sued for losses. Remote access of BSNL IDC: should not be given to NxtGen and NxtGen should be asked to make all provisioning fromBSNL IDConly.” After this, BSNL Corporate Office on May 20, 2021 asked Ahmedabad and Faridabad also to carry out Technical & Physical Audit of their respective IDCs. Technical & Physical Audit at Faridabad GM Faridabad constituted a committee of six members – two DGM level, two AGM level, and two JTO l e v e l – a l l f r om BSNL Faridabad itself. Even though the IDC site was just about 7 km away from their office, they visited the site for the first time on June 29, 2021 and again on July 20, 2021. In its report they had stated the reason for delay in visit “as M/s NxtGen did not provide the data to committee in spite of regular persuasion by committee through emails & telephonic reminder” During these visits, the commit- tee members noticed several irregularities including missing labels of customers name. Through physical tracing of cable, they prestigious commercial area, where even simple rental income from commercial entities would be much higher than what it is getting from NxtGen in this business. Had BSNL insisted for CDSL PO on BSNL directly, as per its EoI conditions with NxtGen, it would have got upper hand in getting 20 per cent ie Rs 66.40 lakh revenue share on full order value. Mathew All these illegalities were going on with ease. Suddenly, a new officer in November 2020, P Ma t hew Kochuva r ke y , Sub - Divisional Engineer (SDE) of BSNL, Maharashtra Circle joined this unit. In February 2021, he noticed this illegality. His other colleague Mahendra Singh, who had visited CG Power's office for a marketing call, was told that the company was already availing the services from BSNL through NxtGen. However, Mr Singh found NxtGen was not listed in BSNL as a customer. This Mr S i ngh i nf ormed Mr Ma thew through an email. Both these instances led to suspicion that NxtGen was hosting many customers on BSNL's IDC site by taking PO directly from customer, without the knowledge of BSNL. On March 3, 2021 Mr Mathew wrote a note to his seniors that NxtGen got the PO issued from CDSL directly in its name instead of BSNL's name. He also pointed out that CG Power is not in BSNL's list but it is getting services from IDC Fort. Quoting various clauses of BSNL, he recommended issuance of notice to NxtGen for breach of contract, and technical audit to Throughout his career Mr Mathew was well appreciated on record by higher officers multiple times. Within two months of Mr Mathew having unearthed the IDC fraud, he was served several memos for not meeting the revenue targets. This was followed by major charge-sheet. His Annual Performance Report was spoiled with extremely low grades and adverse remarks. He was not given the pay promotion. He had to suffermajor financial loss and permanent damage to career. As a result, all the executives of BSNL Maharashtra Circle Office were extremely terrified and higher officers involved in the fraud could coerce other low ranked officers to keep the financial loss low tomere fewcrores.