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'DNA' Investigation: There’s a blot on Pranab’s impeccable CV

In 1983, when he was the finance minister, he had ‘advised’ PSUs to use the services of a family-run psychometry institute.

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The role of Pranab Mukherjee in granting legitimacy to recruitment firm Indian Institute of Psychometry (IIP) has come to the fore following an investigation into how officials from IIP and public sector undertaking (PSU), Nalco, manipulated the recruitment of engineering/management trainees to Nalco in 2010.

The Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) of Nalco presented a report to the ministry of mines confirming manipulation in the recruitment process. It said: “Though certain procedures were followed for the written test and interviews, manipulation by vested interest cannot be ruled out.” The matter is also under investigation by the CBI-Bhubaneswar that has submitted a preliminary report.

The director of the IIP is Manjula Mukherjee, a close relative of the finance minister and now the UPA’s presidential candidate. He is also the chairman of the IIP’s advisory committee, a piece of information he did not reveal to the Lok Sabha which he is mandatorily required to do so.

In 1983, when Pranab was finance minister, the Bureau of Public Enterprises, under his ministry, certified IIP as: “An Institute of Considerable Public Utility” and advised all chief executives of PSUs through a circular to obtain its services. The circular said: “You may like to consider obtaining the assistance of the IIP which is a non-profit distributing organisation, so as to ensure a high degree of consistency and objectivity in the standards of selection and evaluation.”

The government circular endorsing the IIP and vouching for its high standards came barely five years after the company’s inception in 1978. “Issuing such a circular helped IIP get contracts from various PSUs as no chief executive would want to offend the top minister,” said Ashutosh Kr Mishra, director, Integrity Pact (IP) cell, Transparency International India (TII).

The IP cell receives complaints related to corruption in public procurement, corporate fraud and recruitment scams.

According to the code of conduct for ministers, he/she must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise.

Following the circular, IIP bagged contracts under limited tender basis with various PSUs like Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), Air India, Nalco, Vizag Steel Plant and HPCL. In Nalco, 13 of the last 15 recruitment contracts in the last 20 odd years have gone to the IIP.

“After receiving such support, it is sad that the agency involved itself in malpractices,” said Mishra, who has received several complaints against IIP from Nalco officials. 

The issue of manipulation by IIP regarding Nalco’s recruitment process came to the fore after a few disqualified candidates filed a complaint with the Secretary, Mines. The complainants alleged that AK Shrivastava, the then CMD, Nalco, prepared a list of candidates before the interview, handed them to the director (personnel & administration) before the interview with instructions that he should select those candidates.

“This list has been seized by CBI during a search of AK Shrivastava’s office,” confirmed a CBI source.

The Ministry of Mines forwarded the complaint to Nalco for investigation in September 2011. The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) also received the complaint that it forwarded to Nalco in December 2011.

The Nalco management sat on the complaint for over 8 months after which it produced a report that said “manipulation during the selection of candidates cannot be ruled out.” The report said that during the conduct of written examination, the PSU was totally dependent on IIP, Kolkata, without any check from Nalco.

“This delay of 8 months is due to political pressure,” said PK Patra, general secretary, Nalco Labour Union, who filed a complaint before the CBI in June 2011, alleging that the corrupt in Nalco were given a free hand because they were under the protection of the finance minister as the management had favoured ‘his’ agency, i.e., IIP.

During the investigation, the Nalco CVO found that observers for the recruitment test were required to submit a feedback report on how the test was conducted but they did not do so in violation of guidelines. Also, as per guidelines, the answer sheets were to be sealed in an envelope in the presence of a Nalco observer but this was also not done either.

After the test was over, the exam superintendent handed the answer sheets to IIP officials who took them to their head office in Kolkata for evaluation. “The entire process of evaluation system/selection needs a relook,” the report concluded. It also recommended that since IIP has developed a relationship with Nalco officials through its long association in the selection process, the nexus needed to be broken with the implementation of an alternate recruitment strategy.

Despite such strong recommendations, instead of fixing responsibility for the recruitment scam, the Ministry of Mines is delaying taking action by asking the CVO, Nalco, to ascertain if such irregularities took place in the past as well.

This is not the only time the IIP has been accused of irregularities (the second part of this investigation will have details) and it is unlikely that Pranab Mukherjee was unaware of these allegations. So questions have been raised as to why he still continued as chairman of IIP’s advisory committee.

Despite repeated calls and e-mails, there was no response from the Ministry of Finance. When DNA contacted IIP director Manjula Mukherjee, she denied all allegations and said that “vigilance reports by PSUs are false.” She also denied that she was related to the finance minister. She promised to give a detailed reply to DNA’s questions by e-mail but later insisted that her reply would be sent only by registered post. The letter has not reached DNA yet.

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