Audit finds 'ghosts' maintaining servers of Indian mission in Washington

Audit scrutiny records of Indian Embassy in Washington have revealed that ghosts had been supervising the maintenance of its two servers and 16 desktops at the consular section.

While the maintenance company M/s ATC had been paid an amount of US $1,56,450 between May 2012 and March 2015 with their sign sheets showing their engineers routinely visiting the mission twice a month, there were, however, no records of their details in the entrance register of the mission. Further, the price of the servers for which the maintenance contract was signed had been US $6,118 in August 2007, making the cost of annual maintenance to a whopping 705% of the price of the servers.

Calling the M/s ATC a dubious firm, the CAG report tabled in Parliament last week also held the mission guilty of making irregular payment of Rs136.66 lakh and also finding no evidence of services for which the payments were actually delivered . Audit notices that while the M/s ATC was an IT company it neither had any website, nor could it be contacted through email printed in the invoices received. "There were no copies of certificate of incorporation, federal tax id number, IT scrutiny certification, qualification of the service engineers etc," the report said.

On the selection of this company, too, the CAG has raised questions. The mission instead of floating open tenders had simply obtained quotations from three firms viz, M/s Advance Technology Concepts (M/s ATC), M/s Geeks Everywhere and M/s Geeks Rx. Audit observed that no bidding document was sent to the vendors specifying requirements of the mission. It was also found that the two firms were having the same address. A simple internet search revealed that third firm did not exist at the address mentioned in the quotation. The amount of US $4,470 quoted by M/s ATC was considered the lowest and was awarded the contract in 2012. The firm was also granted another contract for supplying necessary equipment for connectivity to Indian missions in immigration, visa and foreigner's registration and tracking (IVFRT) project.

In response to the audit findings, the mission later stopped the payments to M/s ATC for both contracts in 2015, accepting that there had been no response for the firm in the wake of it having no proper email id. On the exorbitant payments to the firm, the mission stated that it was not technically equipped to evaluate the pricing of the contract and it was awarded on the advice of the NIC. But the paper trail maintains that the NIC was not involved for evaluation of quotations.

In another case, the Indian High Commission in London had permitted a private service provider to handle fast track business visas with service charges at an arbitrary rate of 25 pounds, against the normal charges of 7.70 pounds, giving it an undue benefit of Rs10.72 crores between March 2010 to February 2015.