Trailing the government's missing money through a complex web of shell companies, unusual government postings, murky dealings of top executives of a global firm, and a Government Order that never materialized led to the arrest of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu at the sunrise on Saturday by a Special Investigations Team (SIT) of the Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department (CID). The CID chief, N. Sanjay, declared Naidu as the 'prime accused' in a case valued at Rs 370 crores, which dates back half a decade to when he was the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.
The arrest did not come as a surprise to Naidu who had made statements anticipating his arrest in the last 2-3 days. The police officials picked up the three-time CM from Nandyal where Naidu was on a political tour. Immediately after the arrest, Naidu reacted to the media, saying, “I want to tell the people and my cadre, I did no wrong. They have arrested me without furnishing any evidence. They have foisted false cases against me”.
Medical tests were conducted on Naidu, following which he was transported by road to Vijayawada to be presented before a court. He has been booked under various sections, including those that are non-bailable.
The Skill Development scam for which Naidu was arrested has been in the making for quite some time. The first signs of misuse of public money came to light in 2017 when Naidu was still serving as the CM of the bifurcated state. The intelligence wing of GST detected irregularities and probed the matter. It also came to the notice of the Enforcement Directorate, which made the arrests. Then there was an alleged 'whistleblower' who complained to the government about this issue in 2018 when the Naidu government was in power, but no action was initiated. In mid-2019, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy's government came to power, and the alleged scam came under scrutiny, with the CID taking up the case in 2021. After a thorough investigation spanning two years, the CID suspects that Naidu and his associates embezzled government funds through illegal channels.
The origins of the case date back to 2014, immediately after Chandrababu Naidu came to power as the first Chief Minister of the newly-carved Andhra Pradesh, according to the investigating agency, CID. In the second half of 2014, a presentation was given to the CM and senior officials in the state secretariat about a project dealing with the skill development of youth. It was to be helmed by global majors, Siemens Industry Software (India) Private Limited, with the support of the Indian company, DesignTech.
The very next month, the Government formed a new body, the AP State Skill Development Corporation (APSSDC). G. Subba Rao, Secretary to the CM, was appointed as the MD of the Corporation. By January 2015, Subba Rao was holding four posts, including Secretary to the higher education department and secretary to the Department of Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation (the departments controlling the newly-formed Skill Development Corporations).
In June 2015, a Government Order was issued, according to which Siemens and DesignTech would invest 90 per cent as a grant-in-aid out of the total of Rs 3281 crores, and the remaining 10% would be borne by the state to create six Centres of Excellence to skill the youth of the state. The same was also made public by the then AP government. However, deviating from the contents of the GO, a green signal was given to a Memorandum of Understanding sometime later.
According to this MoU, Rs 371 crores were sanctioned to Siemens and DesignTech, completely absolving the technology partners of any contribution towards the project. According to investigating officials, the amount was sanctioned bypassing the regular bureaucratic processes and without any performance guarantee from the side of the team, comprising Siemens and its software distribution partner, DesignTech.
The CID probe has found that the major chunk of the Rs 370 crores has been siphoned off, as only Rs 58 crores were forwarded to Siemens. The rest of the amount was embezzled, allegedly by the senior executives of Siemens and the management of DesignTech, who issued fake invoices of shell companies and routed the money through them. The investigating agency has found that the companies had neither spent any money nor delivered any goods. The funds were channeled through hawala and converted to cash without being utilized for the purpose of establishing Centres of Excellence.
The CID is still probing the end beneficiaries of this alleged scam and strongly suspects that they have been routed back to Naidu through his close associates. The CID said that the scope of the investigation may be extended in the coming days to include Nara Lokesh, the son of Naidu. According to the CID, there were notings made by senior IAS officers, including those in the finance department, at the time of the release of funds, pointing to some objections and making it clear that funds were being released as per the instructions of Naidu.
A female IAS officer, the wife of a senior executive of Siemens, was also appointed to the Skill Development Corporation around the time of the execution of the project, further strengthening the case for the CID. Some of the companies named in the case are PVSP IT Skills Projects Pvt Ltd, ETA Greens Build Tech, IT Smith Solutions, and Bharatiya Global Infomedia Limited. Those who were arrested include G. Subba Rao, former Secretary, APSSDC; Soumyadri Suman Bose, former MD, Siemens Industry Software (India) Pvt limited; and Vikas Vinayak Kahnvelkar, MD of DesignTech Systems Limited.
The CID also maintains that note-files were destroyed sometime in 2018 when the fraud got exposed. Siemens, which had conducted an internal inquiry, has disassociated itself from the scam and blamed the senior executive for wrongful conduct and keeping them in the dark. The CID has said that Naidu was the chief conspirator of the scam, which took place between 2015 and 2018.
