The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has reportedly charged the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), for extending undue favor to Wipro Ltd. CAG in its report claimed that UIDAI incurred a loss of INR 1.41 crore by not following the government policy of routing its advertisements through official agency DAVP.
Wipro, India’s third largest software exporter, had bagged the UIDAI project in May 2011 for INR 134 crore which involved supplying, installing of servers computers, storage systems, security systems in the data centres of UIDAI in Bengaluru and Delhi/NCR region. These systems were to be fully operational, subject to an acceptance test based on UIDAI’s norms, the report stated.
“Unique Identification Authority of India in contravention of the provisions of the contract extended undue favour to the vendor (Wipro Limited) and incurred an avoidable expenditure of INR 4.92 crore on annual maintenance contract of the equipment for a period covered under warranty/free maintenance,” the CAG said in a report tabled in Parliament, as published by BusinessLine.
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As per the report, in March 2013, the UIDAI agreed for annual maintenance contract (AMC) with the vendor. The AMC was of these equipment at a total cost of INR 4.92 crore for the period from February 2013 to January 2014. An agreement was also signed between UIDAI and Wipro at later date on June 1, 2013.
“Thus deviation from the original contract terms and entering into a fresh AMC retrospectively by UIDAI resulted in avoidable expenditure of INR 4.92 crore on AMC of the equipment for a period which was to be covered under warranty or free maintenance,” the report said.
According to the ‘General Conditions of Contract’ the vendor was responsible for erection and installation of the goods and services at the destination sites and for making them fully operational, subject to an acceptance test (AT) based on the prescribed norms, it said.
According to a PTI report published on Economic Times, “The Unique Identification Authority of India did not route its advertisements through the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity in accordance with the advertisement policy of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. This led to loss of INR 1.41 crore as the eligible discount was not availed.”
However, Wipro said in a recent statement shared with CXO Today that the IT company maintains the highest standards of corporate governance and transparency. “We respectfully disagree with the findings of the report that UIDAI extended undue favor to Wipro.”
“We draw attention to the response provided by UIDAI in the CAG report that the acceptance of goods was given by the competent authority in UIDAI after the commissioning of the equipment. The annual maintenance contract was signed post the expiry of the warranty period,” the company stated, denying any such charges.