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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Rs 1,136-cr digitisation contract under scanner

Disclosures on pricing and volumes in a five-year modernisation project have raised questions about costs and oversight. Mumbai: A project described as a routine “digital transformation” of Maharashtra’s registration machinery has raised eyebrows after regulatory disclosures indicated that its billing could reach a staggering Rs 1,136 crores over five years. The Inspector General of Registration & Controller of Stamps (IGR), which comes under the state’s revenue department, has issued a...

Rs 1,136-cr digitisation contract under scanner

Disclosures on pricing and volumes in a five-year modernisation project have raised questions about costs and oversight. Mumbai: A project described as a routine “digital transformation” of Maharashtra’s registration machinery has raised eyebrows after regulatory disclosures indicated that its billing could reach a staggering Rs 1,136 crores over five years. The Inspector General of Registration & Controller of Stamps (IGR), which comes under the state’s revenue department, has issued a Letter of Intent to a consortium led by the Navratna public-sector firm RailTel Corporation of India Ltd., alongside the Nashik-based infrastructure company Ashoka Buildcon Ltd. The consortium has been appointed as managed service provider for a comprehensive modernisation of IGR offices across the state. The five-year turnkey contract covers end-to-end operation and maintenance of IT systems, networks, cloud services and application infrastructure, as well as the scanning of official documents. Execution is scheduled to run until March 19, 2032. It is the financial structure, rather than the scope, that has prompted unease. The approved rate for scanning registered documents is Rs 24.75 per page. Industry sources say prevailing market prices for bulk document scanning typically range between Rs 3 and Rs 6 per page - roughly a quarter of the contracted rate. Costly Contract In identical filings with the NSE and BSE last week, the consortium partners referred to historical data in the request for proposals showing that an average of 9.18 crores pages were scanned annually over the past five years. At the agreed rate, this would translate into payments of around Rs 227 crores a year, taking the projected total to about Rs 1,136 crores over five years. The contract does not specify a ceiling, and payouts are expected to vary with actual volumes. Critics and watchdogs argue that the absence of a fixed cap, combined with a per-page charge well above market levels, leaves room for inflated bills or padded volumes. Prafful Sarda, a Pune-based social worker, questioned the rationale for outsourcing the task. Even if Rs 10 per page were taken as a generous benchmark using advanced machines, Sarda asked, “what is the need to award the scanning contract at a massive cost to outsiders when the state government can itself do it at a much lower cost.” He also raised doubts about the composition of the consortium. “What is the expertise in IT-related work of Ashoka Buildcon Ltd., which is a road infra developer. Moreover, scanning is an easy process – a 100-page file can be scanned and uploaded in barely five minutes. Massive discounts are offered for bulk works. Are the IGR staffers so over-burdened that scanning work has to be outsourced at exorbitant public cost?” Sarda said. According to him, contractors would gain access to sensitive land and property records, as well as information on real-estate preferences and market trends, potentially giving them an early advantage in identifying future development opportunities. He compared the case to what he described as the IRCTC spending Rs 2,619 crores on website upkeep and maintenance over three years, along with Rs 1,950 crores in UPI fees, figures cited in an RTI reply and reported earlier by this newspaper. When contacted, a spokesperson for Ashoka Buildcon said the company was a minority partner in the RailTel-led consortium and that “hence, we are not allowed to speak in the matter.” The spokesperson also declined to comment on when the five-year contract would commence, noting only that the stipulated completion date is March 2032.

Unrest within Mahayuti

Updated: Jan 21, 2025

Mahayuti

Mumbai: The state administration on Sunday stalled the appointments of guardian ministers in Raigad and Nashik districts. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had cleared the appointments before he left for Davos in Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum on Saturday. They are believed to have been stalled on behest of Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who heads the state in absence of the Chief Minister.


NCP’s Aditi Tatkare and BJP’s Girish Mahajan were entrusted with responsibilities of guardian minister for the Raigad and Nashik districts respectively, where Shiv Sena’s Bharat Gogawale and Dada Bhuse had staked claims. Gogawale is a first-time minister while, Bhuse had been the guardian minister of the district during previous government under Eknath Shinde.


Shiv Sena, NCP and BJP all the three constituents of Mahayuti have strong roots in both the districts. However, the Shiv Sena and the NCP had been particularly on loggerheads there. The Shiv Sena, which had been demanding the guardian minister’s post in Nashik district has managed to win only two assembly seats in the district where the NCP has Six and the BJP has Five MLAs. On the contrary, in Raigad the NCP has won only one seat while the Shiv Sena and the BJP both have Three MLAs each in the district.


Sunil Tatkare, MP from Raigad Lok Sabha constituency and the stat unit president of the NCP and father of Aditi Tatkare, had been the guardian minister of Raigad between 2004 and 2014. Gogawale had always been his political opponent before Tatkare joined the Mahayuti government under Ajit Pawar’s leadership in 2023. Gogawale claimed that all the Six Shiv Sena-BJP MLAs in the district had opined in his favour to be the guardian minister of the district and after the decision to appoint Aditi Tatkare was announced, his supporters resorted to violent protests. They burnt tyres in bid to stall traffic on highway in the district. Reacting to the developments, Tatkare said that the issue should be pondered over after CM Fadnavis returns from Davos on Saturday and settled amicably.


In Nashik Girish Mahajan had been the guardian minister of the district between 2014 and 2019 when Fadnavis was the Chief Minister.


The post of guardian minister doesn’t have any constitutional mandate and is considered to be a political appointment. Guardian ministers head the district planning and development councils (DPDC) that control the funds for development works being carried out in the particular district. This control wields much of political power to the minister in that district whereby spreading the party in the district becomes much easier. This is the reason why the grass root politicians seem to be very sensitive to such appointments.


While Gogawale and Bhuse are unhappy about not being appointed as guardian ministers, some others like NCP’s Hasan Mushrif and BJP’s Pankaja Munde are unhappy about not being appointed as guardian district in their home districts of Kolhapur and Beed respectively. DCM Shinde is learnt to have gone to his ancestral village Dare in Satara district after the decision and BJP’s firefighters Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Girish Mahajan are expected to meet him there to try finding a way out of the issue.

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