Naidu govt. awarded fiber net project to blacklisted firm by flouting rules, alleges Minister

Minister Gudivada Amarnath accused N. Chandrababu Naidu of manipulating the tender process for the AP Fiber Net project, causing a revenue loss of ₹114 crore. He alleged that Naidu revoked the blacklisting of a favored company, appointed a Director of the firm to the Tender Evaluation Committee, and ignored Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy's corruption allegations.

Minister for Industries and Information Technology Gudivada Amarnath on September 26 (Tuesday) said the fiber net project unertaken by the Chandrababu Naidu government was replete with violations of the rule book at multiple levels, causing revenue loss of ₹114 crore to the State exchequer.

Making a statement as part of a short discussion on “FiberNet scam in the State” on the floor of the Assembly, the Minister accused TDP national president and the then Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu of manipulating the tender process to allot the work order for phase-I of the AP fiber net project of ₹330 crore to a favoured company, Tera Software Limited, by flouting the rules.

He said the fiber grid project was undertaken purportedly to provide ‘triple play’ services (high-speed Internet, television and telephone service over single broadband connections) at low cost. The project was allotted to Tera Software Limited, a company blacklisted by the Infrastructure Corporation of Andhra Pradesh Limited (INCAP) for non-compliance of EPOS and was barred from participating in any APTS tenders.

The Minister said for reasons unknown, within a couple of months, Mr. Naidu got the blacklisting against the firm revoked and awarded the tender to the company. He said an officer who wrote to the government about the background of the company and sought a fair tender process was transferred unceremoniously and in his place, ‘more pliable’ officers were posted.

The Minister said on August 26, 2015, the government issued G.O. 10 appointing Vemuri Harikrishna Prasad on the Tender Evaluation Committee for the fiber grid project. “Interestingly, Mr. Harikrishna was a Director in Tera Cloud Media Limited, floated and promoted by Tera Software, which eventually cornered the fiber project,’‘ he said, adding the Tera Software Directors were also Directors in the firms linked to Mr. Naidu’s family-owned Heritage Group.

Mr. Amarnath said Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, who was then the leader of the Opposition, had raised this “corruption” issue on the floor of the Assembly questioning the Chandrababu Naidu government for the ‘irregularities’ and had demanded his resignation, but the latter chose to overlook the issue.

The Minister said the deviations committed at the time of the execution of the AP Fiber Net project phase-I had caused a revenue loss of ₹114 crore to the government exchequer.