Secrets of the Prime Minister's Relief Fund

I had sought information about the PM's relief fund in June 2006 using RTI. The PMO refused to give any information about the functioning of the fund, claiming it was not a Public authority! The first appellate authority rejected my appeal. Ultimately, the information was released, on orders by the Central Information Commission. In the end of March 2007, I raised questions about the fact that in 2004-05 while 968.78 crores came into the fund for the Tsunami disaster, only 101.6 crores were spent. Even in the next year only 109.21 crores were spent. The money had been donated for the people affected by a calamity, and aid had not reached the affected sufferers. In response to this the PMO put up the following ingenious explanation on its website http://pmindia.nic.in/relief .htm. :
“Statement of Income and Expenditure for last five years is as under:

Year	Total Income	Total Expenditure	Balance
2002-03	102.65	142.24	482.88
2003-04	50.48	88.45	444.91
2004-05	968.78	101.60	1312.08
2005-06	278.06	109.21	1480.94
2006-07	144.32	181.89	1443.37

An amount of Rs. 895.42 crore has been earmaked for Tsunami Relief and Rehabilitation Schemes.
I was intrigued by this, since it meant that there was more than enough money for the victims of Tsunami and there was no immediate need. Relief funds are collected to give immediate relief to victims of calamities, and Citizens and others are moved by the suffering and give the money for this specific purpose.
To verify the accuracy of this curious claim, I again sent a RTI application to the PIO of the PMO asking : "If there is a system of allocating funds for future disbursals in each year, I want the details of the allocations made for future disbursals in 2003-2004, 2004-2005 and 2005-2006
I also asked for a copy of the minutes of the meeting in which this was decided, or any documentary evidence in that year, evidencing it.
The answer revealed that the claim on the PMO’s website was untrue. It stated, "I am to refer to your application dated 8 April 2007 under RTI on the above noted subject and to say that there is no system of prior fund allocation. Sanctions/releases are made only after the events". The relief funds are run as personal fiefdoms as my RTI queries have shown.
On 4th December, 2007 I asked the PIO of the PMO, “ As of 31st March, 2007 I want the details of the amounts deposited in banks or any other place, giving the names of the banks or Financial Institutions, amounts deposited and rates of interest.
The Public Information Officer has refused to give this information, on the bizarre grounds,““specific information regarding the FIs and the terms and conditions of the deposits may amount to disclosure of information including commercial information, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of third parties. Further, this information is made available to the officers of the Fund in their fiduciary relationship. The desired information is therefore covered under section 8 (1) (d) & (e) of the Right to Information Act 2005.”
The first appeal has been rejected and the matter is now before the Central Information Commission in a second appeal. It appears that there are some dark secrets which the PMO is trying to hide. Right to Information will pry and bring these into Public domain.

Definition of 'Information'

When using the Right to Information, it is necessary to understand what is ‘information’. We will look at the definition given in the Act and then attempt to understand what it means.
The Act defines ‘information’ in Section 2 (f):
2 (f) "information" means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force;
Comments: In simple terms it means that information is anything, which exists in any form with a public authority. The specific instances –records, documents, memos, emails, opinions, advices,...,reports,..... samples,models,.. are merely meant to illustrate the broad scope. Clearly file notings are opinions, legal or other opinions obtained by Public authorities, or various reports received by them are all covered. This also lays down a very important principle. Information relating to any private body, which may not be covered by the definition of ‘Public Authority’ (given in Section 2 h), can be obtained through a public authority if the law allows the public authority to access it. Thus if any public authority has the right to ask for any information under the law from a private organisation-which is not a public authority;- the Citizen can ask for it from the public authority. A few illustrative examples of how information may be obtained from institutions which are not Public authorities:
a) Information about a private bank can be obtained from the regulator –Reserve Bank of India,- if the law permits RBI to ask for it. Most information of any significance can be accessed.
b) Information about a private unaided school--from the education department.
c) Information about a Public Limited Company –from the Registrar of Companies or SEBI if the law empowers them to ask for it.
d) Information about a Cooperative Society-from the Registrar of Cooperative Societies.
e) Information about Trusts-from the Charities Commissioner.
There is some difference of opinion on whether the term ‘accessed’ means any information which the authority can ask for under various provisos or the information which the authority is usually supposed to get under the law. As an example: The Labour office requires certain information to be submitted at certain intervals- this certainly can be accessed under Right to Information, since all information with the State is held on behalf of the Citizen. However, the labour office during an investigation, can access virtually all the records of an organisation which normally would not be done. Some RTI users argue that this proviso can therefore be used to mean any information of a private organisation can be obtained through any Public authority by invoking the special investigative powers of the Public authority. Such a wide interpretation would actually mean that all private organisations could be forced to disclose all the information with them. Most Commissions do not agree with this view, and I am inclined to agree with their view. Only the information normally accessed by the Public authorities come under the ambit of RTI. On the other hand all information with the Public authority, is certainly information covered by the Right to Information Act. The Public authority holds the information on behalf of Citizens-the owners and masters of the Government,-on their behalf. Shri Laxmi Chauhan had asked for certain information from the PIO of the Ministry of Mines about BALCO. This was refused by the PIO. The CIC in its decision in this case in No.CIC/AT/A/2007/00389 has categorically stated, “The information must be available in the annual report of the company, which under law is to be submitted to shareholders. Being a shareholder of the company, with representation on its Board of management, the information sought must be available with the Ministry of Mines, and what is available with the Ministry cannot be denied to an applicant under the Right to Information Act.” Thus, once any information is with a Public authority, it is information available to any Citizen under the Right to Information Act, subject to the provisions of the Act. Repeatedly, the Act recognises that what is with the Government is on behalf of the Citizen, who is the rightful master.

Preamble of the Right to Information Act

The preamble:
THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION BILL, 2005
A Bill
to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authorities, in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority, the constitution of a Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

WHEREAS the Constitution of India has established democratic Republic;

AND WHEREAS democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information which are vital to its functioning and also to contain corruption and to hold Goverments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed;

AND WHEREAS revelation of information in actual practice is likely to conflict with other public interests including efficient operations of the Governments, optimum use of limited fiscal resources and the preservation of confidentiality of sensitive information;

AND WHEREAS it is necessary to harmonise these conflicting interests while preserving the paramountcy of the democratic ideal;

NOW, THEREFORE, it is expedient to provide for furnishing certain information to citizens who desire to have it

Comments: The preamble is the soul of the Act. When there is any confusion or dilemma about the meaning or interpretation of the provisions, it should be tested on the touchstone of the preamble. Just as the basic features of the Constitution are unalterable, and form the basis for interpretation of laws, the preamble of an Act should be understood to arrive at the objectives of the Act. The fact that the Right to Information is part of the fundamental rights of Citizens under Article 19 (1) has been recognised by various Courts, since the landmark decisions in the Raj Narain case, S.P.Gupta case and the ADR case amongst others.
This is not a new right conferred on the Citizens but is a part of our Fundamenatal right to Freedom of Expression under Article 19 (1).
The legislative intent is clear when it admits the need for an informed citizenry, “to contain corruption and to hold Governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed.” Thus the objective of this Act is to enable Citizens to hold all the instrumentalities of the Government accountable. In the next paragraph it recognises that in doing this, there may be a conflict with other public interests including running the Government and limited fiscal resources. The last paragraph unequivocally declares ,” AND WHEREAS it is necessary to harmonise these conflicting interests while preserving the paramountcy of the democratic ideal;” . Thus it is clear that in making the law, Parliament has recognised the need to harmonise different needs for running the Government and harmonised them with the paramountcy of the democratic ideal. Very often the various functionaries arrogantly assume that they are a better judge of what is good for governance, and therefore misinterpret all laws through their paradigm of what will lead to good governance. They must understand that these aspects have been considered actively by the lawmakers when framing the law. It is essential that all the elements of society: all the Public servants,- in the legislature, judiciary and the executive;- and the Citizens- the masters of the democracy,- follow all laws. The essence of democracy is that each individual Citizen is a sovereign in her own right, and she gives part of the sovereignty to the State, in return for which she gets the rule of law. Thus it is a negotiation of each individual sovereign with the State for the common rule of law.

Right to Information-path to Swaraj

The Right to Information (RTI) is a fundamental right of Citizens and a formal National law codifying this right has been effective throughout India from Vijayadashmi , 12 October 2005. It is extremely simple to use and empowers all Indian Citizens to monitor their Government and improve its governance. We have a democracy with a reasonably fair system of elections, a good constitution and yet realize that it has not delivered satisfactorily to its masters-the Citizens. We have blamed our politicians, bureaucrats, economics, policies and so on. This has happened because we have missed the essence of democracy. The real essence of democracy is the fundamental belief that the individual Citizen is a sovereign in her own right, and she gives up part of the sovereignty to the State, in return for which she gets the rule of law. The individual sovereign Citizen has become the ‘bechara’ who feels completely helpless. Our democracy has been an elective democracy, where the Citizen excercises his choice once in five years, and is then left powerless. Right to Information (RTI) gives him an easy and simple method to monitor his Government. It equips him with information with which he can expose and shame a corrupt system to correct itself. This can lead to a true participatory Government- the Swaraj that we desire and deserve.
A simple query without any forms and an application fee of 10 rupees gives the individual Citizen the Right to Information from all ‘Public authorities’. Every office of our Government is mandated by law to have a Public Information Officer (PIO), who must provide the information requisitioned by a Citizen within 30 days. Failure to provide information without reasonable cause, can lead to an imposition of a penalty of 250 rupees per day on the PIO personally. There are only ten categories of information which can be denied. The information is provided at a fee of 2 rupees per page. The biggest gain is that it needs no followup or personal interaction with the PIO. I have never gone to meet a PIO or even telephoned anybody to get information when using RTI. The Citizen uses the process of RTI and can often get the information at a total cost of about 50 to 70 rupees.
In this blog, a lot of my posts are likely to be about Right to Information. All that I write in this blog or elsewhere is in Public domain, and everyone is encouraged to reproduce whatever they wish, without any permissions from me. A reader might benefit by getting some basic information about RTI from www.satyamevajayate.info
shailesh gandhi
Mera Bharat Mahaan…
Nahi Hai,
Per Yeh Dosh Mera Hai.

'Public Authority' in RTI

PUBLIC AUTHORITY under RTI
Whereas there is a clear understanding that all Citizens can avail of the Right to Information, there is some lack of clarity about which institutions have been mandated to give information by the Right to Information Act. Most of this arises because of the arrogance of many who think they cannot be answerable to the Common Citizen of India. They forget that the Citizen is the sovereign of this democracy. The RTI act lays down that all ‘public authorities’ have to provide information to the Citizen. Public authority has been defined by Section 2 (h) of the act as follows:
“h) public authority means any authority or body or institution of self government established or constituted,—
(a) by or under the Constitution ;
(b) by any other law made by Parliament;
(c) by any other law made by State Legislature;
(d) by notification issued or order made by the appropriate Government,
and includes any--
(i) body owned, controlled or substantially financed;
(ii) non-Government organisation substantially financed,
directly or indirectly by funds provided by the appropriate Government;”
Effectively a) , b) and c) and d) mean any authority or body which we consider as Government in common parlance- all Ministries and their departments, Municipal Bodies, Panchayats, and so on. This also includes Courts, Universities, UPSC, Public Sector Undertakings like Nationalised Banks, LIC, and UTI amongst others. All Stock Exchanges and SEBI are Public authorities and subject to RTI. The issue of coverage of Stock exchanges has been settled in a well reasoned order by a full bench decision of the Central Commission in appeal 2006/00684 & CIC/AT/A/2007/00106.
It is worth remembering that establishments of the Parliament, Legislatures, Judiciary, President and the Governors have also been brought under the surveillance of the Common Citizen. It is unfortunate that some ‘Constitutional functionaries’ and other bodies have been displaying their arrogance and ignorance by claiming that they are above the law.
Subclause d (i), and (ii) together mean any non-government organisations which are substantially owned, controlled or financed directly or indirectly by the Government would be covered. Thus aided schools and colleges are Public Authorities, as also any trusts or NGOs which have significant Government nominees; or Companies where the Government either owns substantial stake, or has given substantial finance, are directly covered under the RTI Act. Substantial finance must take into account tax-incentives, subsidies and other concessions as well.
There is some confusion about the words substantial finance. This confusion also prevails in some of the decisions of the Information Commissions as well. Let us again look at the relevant words carefully:
2 “h) public authority means any authority or body….
(d)…..and includes any--
(j) body owned, controlled or substantially financed;
(ii) non-Government organisation substantially financed,
directly or indirectly by funds provided by the appropriate Government;”
The finance could be either as investment or towards the expenses, or both. The way in which the words have been placed, indicates that perhaps (i) relates to investments and (ii) relates to the running expenses.
Thus every institution which is owned by the Government is clearly covered. By any norms, whenever over 50% of the investment in a body belongs with any entity, it is said to be owned by that entity. Since bodies owned by Government have been mentioned separately, the words ‘controlled’ and ‘substantially financed’ will have to be assigned some meaning not covered by ownership. Thus it is evident that the intention of the Parliament is to extend the scope of the right to other organisations, which are not owned by it. No words in an Act can be considered to be superfluous, unless the contradiction is so much as to render a significant part meaningless or they violate the preamble. Therefore it becomes necessary to consider a situation where an entity may be controlled by Government without ownership or substantial finance. Such a situation exists when a Charity Commissioner or Registrar of Societies appoints an administrator to run the affairs of a Trust or Society, or a Court Liquidator takes over administration of some body. The interpretation given by some that ‘control’ means any kind of control like that excercised by the Registrar of Societies over Cooperative societies , or by RBI on all private banks is too wide, and certainly not supported by the law. If we take this very wide interpretation, all Companies are controlled by the Registrar of Companies, all Sales tax dealers by the Sales tax authorities, and all factories by the Inspector of factories and so on. By this logic, all Companies, sales tax dealers and factories amongst others will have to give information under the RTI Act. Such a wide interpretation is clearly not intended in the law.
Let us now consider what are the implications of the words ‘substantially financed.’ It is obvious that as per Section 2 (h) (i) ‘ body …substantially financed’ would be a body where the ownership may not lie with the Government, nor the control. Hence clearly the wording ‘substantially financed’ would have to be given meaning at less than 50% holding. The Company Law gives significant rights to those who own 26% of the shares in a Company. Perhaps this could be taken to define the criterion of ‘substantial finance’. The finance could be as equity, or subsidies in land or concessions in taxation.
Similarly some definition is required where the State provides money for the running expenses of an Institution as covered under (ii). Presently, aided schools and colleges have all clearly been accepted as ‘Public authorities’ though there appears to be no clarity in the matter of NGOs and other organisations which are receiving significant amounts of finance.
The key approach and philosophy of the RTI act appears to be that since the State acts on behalf of the Citizens, wherever the State gives money, the Citizen has a right to know. In my opinion if the money given for the running expenses is over 1 crore the body should be considered as receiving ‘substantial finance’ and is covered in the definition of a ‘Public authority’.
At times it has been argued that to be a Public authority, a body must meet the criterion of being a ‘State’ against which a writ is maintainable. If the intention of the Parliament was to restrict the right to bodies which are the ‘State’, it would have said so, since the concept is well established. The term ‘Public Authority’ is broader and more generic than the word ‘State’ under Article 12 of the Constitution. Hence the intention of the Parliament was clearly based on giving the Citizens,- its masters,- the right to information over all entities owned by them, as well as where their money is being invested or spent.

Contempt of Citizen's Sovereignty

Contempt of Citizen’s Sovereignty
Sometime back the Chief Justice of India has made two statements in Public speeches, which have a seminal bearing on the functioning of our democracy. He said that judges are above the Right to Information law. Later,- in Kerala,- he justified the existence of the Contempt powers of the Court, saying that,” No executive officer will obey court orders if they are not afraid of the provisions of contempt of court.” The first statement seeks to put judges beyond the RTI law and the second misses the major point why Citizens have been highlighting the misuse of contempt powers.
We must understand that there are two types of Contempt of Court-criminal contempt and civil contempt. If somebody does not obey the orders of the court, he is held guilty of committing ‘civil contempt’. Nobody has questioned the need for continuing the provisions of ‘civil contempt’ to enforce the orders of the courts. On the other hand, the provisions of ‘criminal contempt of court’ are attracted if the court feels its decisions, or conduct, are questioned; as they say if the judge or court are scandalized. Citizens have been questioning the need and desirability of continuing with the ‘criminal contempt’ provisions.

It is well recognized that the center of a democratic setup is the individual Citizen who is a sovereign in her own right. She gives up part of the sovereignty to the State in return for a Rule of Law. The Instrumentalities of the State exist to serve the Citizens who are the Masters. The Masters have the right to scrutinize and question their Public servants,-including the judges,- about the actions that are taken on their behalf. The existence and legitimacy of the Public servants is derived from the service they provide to the Citizens. Some special privileges and immunity may be given to the Public servants only to ensure that they can function to serve this objective. Otherwise the key principle of democracy is equality before the law. As Justice Mathew had said, “Be they ever so high, the law is above them.”
Let us now look at three sets of Public servants and test the principle of the respect and protection they need, to be able to discharge their duties for the Citizens. Let us take the elected representatives, the Police and the Judges to test this principle. The elected representatives have the highest legitimacy because they subject themselves to a direct approval by the Citizens every five years. It can be argued that they need to be able to command respect from the Citizens, without which respect for the laws they frame will not be forthcoming. They frame policies, which have political and financial impact on the present as well as future generations. They have to face people directly in every conceivable place and time, and if special privileges or protection against criticism is not given to them, they will not be able to discharge their functions. Let us now picture a policeman who has to enforce the law. He again faces Citizens,- even enraged or inflamed mobs,- and must function in the midst of all the dirt and grime to enforce the law. If Citizens do not respect him,- or believe he is corrupt and a criminal himself,- can he discharge his law enforcement function to the Public? On the other hand a judge sits in a cloistered and protected environment and dispenses justice to uphold the law. He is in a very safe and secure environment and discharges his functions at his own convenient pace comfortably sitting in a chair.
The Police and elected representatives face our criticism and the judges themselves have ordained greater transparency and accountability for them. They cannot claim supernatural power to try Citizens for contempt for speaking or writing critically about their conduct. We understand the need for the Court to have the powers to try for Contempt if its orders are not implemented. But the privilege of being able to terrorize Citizens and media into not examining or questioning their actions or decisions is an anachronism. Criticism strengthens all democratic institutions and the power of the Citizens to question their Servants is Supreme. If allegations and charges of impropriety or corruption render Public Servants ineffective then we must consider extending the warm obfuscating cloak of ‘Contempt powers’ to all of them. We make allegations against MPs and MLAs, carry out sting operations against them, and nobody including the Courts have argued that this is the cause of our misgovernance. The Courts infact have ruled that Citizens have a right to know even the personal assets and details of criminal charges from those who seek our vote. Can the executive and the judiciary then be exempt from this? It is unfortunate that the Courts,- which made lofty pronouncements of the Right To Information being a fundamental right of Citizens,- have been extremely reluctant to subject themselves to the provisions of this law.
A myth is being propagated that the judiciary is much better than the other instrumentalities of the State. This is untrue and most probably the same diseases which afflict the rest of our governance exist in the Courts. All voices are terrorized into silence by muzzling. Nobody knows the truth; and the peril is that the decline could be more than elsewhere because of this cloak of Contempt with which the judiciary protects itself. Let us stop mouthing the cliché, “We have faith in the Judiciary,” and give the clear statement that we shall question, since it is our fundamental right.
The Court has no authority to make Laxman Rekhas for its Masters-the Citizens of India. It is we who will draw the Citizen’s Rekhas which the Public servants shall not cross. When a Prime Minister of India tried to muzzle our Freedom of expression and press, we defeated her at the elections. For unwarranted or motivated allegations, the Citizens including the Prime Minister and judges have the protection of the laws on defamation. There is absolutely no justification for the judges to give themselves the power of the Lord to be above all criticism and trnsparency. The Criminal contempt of Court must be scrapped.
“A discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human liberty”. –MARK TWAIN

Nhava Sheva fraud

Nhava Sheva Transharbour Sea Link- Fraud explained

We all expect and accept corruption in the large Infrastructure projects. But this project gives us the smoking gun;- where we have proof of the brazen manner in which a fraud is being committed.
Here are the facts mostly unearthed using Right to Information. My enquiries started in September 2007. The Supreme Court had ruled that the disqualification of Anil Ambani’s Company for the bidding of the Mumbai Trans Harbour Sea Link Project (MTHL) was bad and that ‘the decision to exclude REL/HECL is arbitrary, whimsical and unreasonable’.
I was curious to know some details about this project, which has been said to be around 3000 crores, and asked for copies of the minutes of meeting at which the decision to disqualify REL/HECL was taken. When I received the minutes, they revealed some really disturbing matters.
1. Anil Ambani’s REL with Hyundai was disqualified on grounds of financial inadequacy! The discussions show that REL itself had adequate financial standing to qualify.
2. Crisil was involved in the evaluation of the bids. The meeting brings out the fact that Crisil was a consultant to Ms. Seaking which was linked with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance group. Crisil qualified Seaking, and disqualified Anil Ambani’s group on the grounds of financial inadequacy! The issue of conflict of interests was raised at the meeting and forgotten!
3. Another very curious aspect was that another Company China Harbour was disqualified on what appeared to me to be absurd reasons! Further RTI queries revealed that the Company had had given proof of having made a longer bridge 32.5km bridge in China, whereas the Nhava Sheva bridge is just 22 km. It had made the 32.5 km bridge for just 851 crores, whereas MSRDC’s estimate for the Nhava Sheva 22 km. was over 2000 crores hence it was not allowed to bid!
(Note: Indian contractors have managed to jack up the price of the 5.6 km. Sealink to over 1600 crores, where China Harbour is the main subcontractor.)
Consequent to the Supreme Court’s order Anil Ambani was allowed to quote for this BOT project. When the bids were opened, the Anil Ambani Company had offered to build the bridge, recover its costs through tolls and then hand over the bridge to the State in nearly 10 years, whereas the Mukesh Ambani group had asked for revenues for over 75 years. Now the State has decided not to give the project to the Anil Ambani company, but to build it itself! This is obviously because there is not enough padding in his offer
to pay the huge bribes now. The State calims that the offer should be about 44 years to recover the revenue. I have asked for details of the minutes of meetings at MSRDC, but a simple calculation is very revealing. The assumptions by the bidders have been for 50000 vehicles per day at Rs.150/ per trip. A simple calculation based on this shows that this would lead to a revenue of Rs. 75 lacs per day or about Rs. 270 crores each year.
Based on a return of Rs.270 crores per year and a rate of 6%, 8% and 10% returns, the Net present Value will be as shown in the table below:

Interest Rate	10 years	44 years	75 years
6%	1987	4173	4443	NPV in crores
8%	1812	3269	3364	NPV
10%	1659	2663	2698	NPV
	Anil’offer	MRDCestimate	Mukesh offer

This shows that the Mukesh Ambani estimate is uncannily close to the MSRDC’s estimate, whereas the Anil Ambani group is estimating the cost as about half,-about 1700 to 2000 crores. The difference of 10 years, 44 years and 75 years actually is much lower the moment you factor the NPV. This is almost like the equated instalments paid by in any normal loan transaction with constant repayments. The State is refusing a reasonable offer made by Anil Ambani on the grounds that it is too low! Anil Ambani is also playing along to get some humour the administration. The State now says it will build the bridge itself and will levy an impact fee-an increased tax,-to pay for the bribes?
In brief:
1. It appears that initially the project was designed to be given to the Mukesh Ambani group with over 50% being reserved for ‘education’-a la Enron.
2. To achieve this others like China Harbour and the Anil Ambani group were disqualified by a rigged process.
3. Incidentally China Harbour has built a 32.5 km seabridge in China for 851 crores and is the main subcontractor for the Worli-Bandra sealink. Anil Ambani wanting to best his elder brother played the spoilsport and bid about 50% -which did not leave much for bribes.
4. In a weird development, the State says Anil Ambani’s bid is too low and Mukesh Ambani’s bid too high, hence it will undertake the project. After four years of proposing a BOT, the State gives no explanation for this turnaround. Anil Ambani has obviously been pacified in some manner. Anil Ambani has made a reasonable offer, and the State has qualified his consortium with Hyundai. China Harbour was disqualified for the ability to build a bridge of 32.5 km for 851 crores, and after the bidding Anil Ambani’s group is not awarded the project because we will get it at a reasonable cost-translating into roughly 2000 crores.
5. Now the State will decide to build this and the current Government will award it for around 6000 to 7000 crores. Next year when the political dispensation will probably change the new ministry will hike it maybe 10000 crores. Do we remember ENRON?
Citizens, business houses and others must protest strongly and make the Government act in Public interest. The methodology being adopted has brazen CORRUPTION written all over, and offers us an opportunity to reverse it.

shailesh gandhi