Thiruvananthapuram, May 4 (). The Congress-led opposition in Kerala on Thursday challenged Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan over another deal – the K-Fon project – alleging that it was a bigger scam than the AI camera project.
The Kerala Fiber Optic Network (K-FON) project was launched in 2017. Under the project, the chief minister had promised free internet to 20 lakh homes besides 30,000 government offices.
Leader of Opposition V.D. Its project cost was pegged at Rs 1,028 crore and on completion of the tendering process, it was increased to Rs 1,531 crore, Satheesan told the media. This was a gross violation as the then Finance Secretary K.M. Abraham had said that there should not be more than 10 per cent cost escalation for government projects and here it is more than 50 per cent.
This, he said, also involved the same company that was involved in the AI camera scam – SRIT. There is a cartel in Kerala which is blessed by Vijayan. All the deals go to them and surprisingly these are companies with no prior experience. In short, all traces of corrupt deals eventually lead to Presadio Technologies involving Vijayan’s close family members, as reports about it have already come to the fore.
He said the situation after six years of K-Fon is that officials say 90 per cent work is over, so far only 16,000 offices have been given connections and initially only 14,000 homes will get connections.
So far, Vijayan has not uttered a word against the allegations leveled against him, Satheesan said, and the most interesting thing in the K-Fon project was that Vijayan’s former principal secretary- senior IAS officer M. Sivasankar was also involved.
Notably, Shivshankar – who retired earlier this year – is in jail over corruption in the Life Mission project.
He said, despite repeated requests, Vijayan is not breaking his silence on the AI camera scam. Even now if Vijayan doesn’t speak up, we will be forced to come out with more documents on the rampant corruption in K-Fon.
akj
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