Bikram Singh Majithia says Randhawa overruled objections of the ACS and Registrar, Cooperatives to favour unknown company whose product was also not approved by IRDA
Asserts CVC guidelines and even State General Finance Rules, 2017 not followed
Chandigarh, July 06, 2020: Former minister Bikram Singh Majithia today demanded a criminal case be registered against Cooperation minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa for indulging in corruption by breaking all rules and overriding objections of officials to grant a contract to an ineligible insurance company for providing death coverage to department employees against COVID-19 through a single bid tender. He also asserted that the loss incurred by the State treasury by way of this scam be recovered from the Cooperation minister.
Addressing a press conference here, Mr Bikram Majithia blew the lid off the entire scam by releasing the entire official file of the case to the media. He said the evidence provided by him proved that this was an open and shut case of corruption. He also exposed the lies uttered by Mr Sukhjinder Randhawa to save himself from being caught out.
Listing out the points which indicated that kickbacks had been received in the case, the SAD leader said the tender process did not follow Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) guidelines. He said even the General Finance Rules, 2017 of the Punjab government stated that procurement from a single source could be made only if the particular firm alone was equipped to deliver the services. He said Randhawa also overlooked the fact that the Union government as well as the State government had issued directives to compensate the next of kin of front line workers laying down their life in the line of duty during the pandemic. He said the State government had even issued a letter in this context on May 8, three days before the contract was awarded to Go Digit
Disclosing the machination of the Cooperation minister, Mr Majithia said the former overruled the objections of his own bid committee which said since it was a case of a single bid it should be re tendered. He said Randhawa also overruled a second objection which recommended calling for an e-tender as per established norms and allowed a suspect e-mailing process to receive tender documents. He said the minister also overruled the objection of the Registrar, Cooperatives who said the tender should be re-tendered because no comparison could be made with the rates of any other company.
Giving further details about Go Digit, he said the company was ineligible for the contract as it had not been registered for a period of three years with IRDA as was necessary. He said even the product of the company which had been offered to the Punjab government was not approved by IRDA. He said as far as the financial health of the company was concerned it had done a business of Rs 36 crore in the health sector last year. He said LIC had also applied for the tender but it was not considered despite the fact that it did a business of Rs 1.77 lakh crore last year.
Mr Majithia said the Cooperation department had provided death coverage to 14,605 employees including contractual employees which had also been objected to by the department. He said the policy was also framed in such a way to deny insurance cover in case of co-morbidity. He said in case of COVID-19 co morbidity was very common and refusing to acknowledge this fact was against the interest of policy holders.
Others present on the occasion included legislator Kanwarjit Singh Rosy Barkandi and Office Secretary Charanjit Singh Brar.