NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday carried out nationwide raids, after registering a case naming many officials of BSNL and private firms in the grant of Leased service Area (LSA) contract for deployment of WiMax services for BSNL. The irregularities in BSNL's WiMax deal is yet another contract in which former telecom minister A Raja was accused of manipulating provisions of the tender to favour a firm. However, Raja's name doesn't figure in the CBI FIR. A CBI spokesperson said that the agency carried out searches in nine places in Delhi, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Chennai and Kolkata. "During searches, incriminating documents have been recovered," the spokesperson said.
"It is alleged that the public servants had entered into a criminal conspiracy among themselves and in furtherance of the said conspiracy the accused public servants abused their official position and facilitated the award of franchisee for three LSAs to a private limited company," the CBI said. The agency accused the officials of "dishonestly and intentionally withholding the sale of tender documents in a fraudulent manner, and, allegedly diluting the eligibility conditions to accommodate" to favour Starnet Communications, which won the contract. The CBI said BSNL suffered an "estimated wrongful loss of approximately Rs 535.50 crore" because of the deal. The CBI said Starnet also "did not have the required qualification of Rs 100 crore annual turnover for the last two years." According to CBI sources, the agency raided the premises of former CMD of BSNL Kuldeep Goyal, former director consumer mobility of BSNL RK Aggarwal, former GM Pradeep Nagpal and former DGM of strategic planning Anil Kumar. The agency also raided the premises of directors of Starnet Communications. Among those raided were Rajesh Bhatt, Director (M/S Ampoules Auto Pvt. Ltd, now M/S Starnet Communications, Park Street, Kolkata), director of Starnet S Manoharan, office of Starnet on Park Street, Kolkata and Wellcome Communications at Teynampet in Chennai. BSNL had on June 3, 2009, floated tender for WiMax franchise. The CBI's preliminary enquiry found that BSNL diluted terms and conditions of the contract to favour Starnet. Sources said that Starnet was owned by some who were reportedly close to Raja. Starnet was given the WiMax franchisee in six circles, though it did not satisfy all the norms. There were five applicants, but the contract was awarded to Starnet even going against the recommendations of an internal DoT panel, the CBI found.
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