Yes. Council of Ministers evaluated the project proposal and accordingly budgeted the amount as part of the Annual Financial Statement of 2015-16 and the amount was passed by the state assembly.
APSSDC conducted a field study on SIEMENS centres in Gujarat and submitted a report and subsequently GO.MS.NO.4 30/06/2015 (Publicly Available on https://goir.ap.gov.in/ under Skill Development Entrepreneurship and Innovation Department) was released detailing the costs and cluster model to be implemented.
Relevant Documents:
| Document | Description |
G.O.Ms.No. 4 – Skill Development, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Department – Clearance of project. Establishing SIEMENS Centers of Excellence (COEs) and Technical Skill Development Institutions (TSDIs) and Skill Development Centers (SDCs) in the State of Andhra Pradesh – Approval of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) – Orders – Issued. | |
G.O.Ms.No.8 Skill Development, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Department – Formation of committees to monitor the SIEMENS Project programme – Order–Issued. | |
Council of Ministers Resolution no.33/2015 – Establishment of Siemens centre of excellence. |
Yes, a detailed evaluation was done by the Central Institute of Tool Design that concluded that the project cost indicated by Siemens and DesignTech is reasonable. A total of 559.33 crores indicated by Siemens for each cluster was certified as acceptable by the Central Institute of Tool Design.
- For Services, a total of 13.31 crores per cluster indicated by Siemens was evaluated to be acceptable.
- For Digital courses, 249.75 crores per cluster indicated by Siemens to offer 476 courses is certified to be acceptable.
- For software, a total of 247.78 crores per cluster indicated by Siemens was certified to be acceptable.
- For Hardware, a total of 48.48 crores per cluster indicated by Siemens was certified acceptable.
A total cost of 559.33 crores per cluster was certified to be reasonable by the CITD per cluster.
Relevant Documents:
Document | Description |
| CITD Evaluation | Details of Valuation made on the proposal. |
APSSDC, Siemens, DesignTech are the vital stakeholders in the project.
S No | Agency | Role |
1 | APSSDC | Identification of the COEs and T-SDIs, communication to COEs and T-SDIs, allocation of Lab spaces. |
2 | Siemens | SISW is the Technology Partner to provide software and also be the Program Adviser to DesignTech. Responsibilities include conducting Industry interactive sessions, and student contests, training and certifying DesignTech faculty, and conducting certification programs. |
3 | DesignTech | System Integrator and Implementor for the whole project as in other states like Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand. Responsibilities include Installation of software and hardware, setting up labs, enrolling students, training teachers and students, and conducting industry interactive sessions, student contests, and certification programs. |
4 | Institutes identified for skill development | Allocation of Lab spaces and operating the project for a minimum duration of 10 years. |
Yes, Design Tech is Siemens’ implementation partner as in other states like Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand. Design Tech is the implementer and system integrator for the overall project in active collaboration with Siemens Industry Software, India.
Yes, all 40 centers were established by 31st May 2018 and approximately 2.13 lakh students were trained in these centers by Mar 2020. Assets after the 3 year project completion period are also handed over to APPSDC and the hosting institute.
No. The centres are established in a mix of government and government-aided colleges.
- 1 in every 4 institutes where SIEMENS has set up Skill Development centres are government institutes. Others are government-aided institutions.
- A total of 2.13 lakh students have been trained through the skill development centres and 70,000 of these trained students have obtained employment.
- Siemens COE and t-SDI aim to train Engineering, Diploma students, and Faculty on world-class Siemens Equipment & Software. The COE and T-SDI provide training by Siemens-certified partners. COE and T-SDI benefit the student community immensely as they are trained on the same Equipment/Software that is used by Industry. Participants acquire industry best practices through this training. The globally valid Siemens Certification, after completion of training, increases employability.
- Siemens develops software for various industry segments like Automotive, Industrial Machinery, Industrial automation, Aerospace and Defence, Shipbuilding, etc.
- For all these sectors to use their software they need trained manpower. That’s the reason why they support skill development centers across the globe by providing their software free so that people can get trained on it and be ready to take up jobs on their software.
- It’s a Win-Win situation for both Siemens and the state implementing it. Siemens would get their required manpower and the state would generate jobs for unemployed youth.
- In 90:10 Private Public Technology partnership scenarios usually it is an MOU and Grants process that is followed by IT Companies and Govts. This kind of engagement does not generally involve floating float Tenders, as aptly followed by Siemens/DesignTech & previous Govt of AP.
- The same approach was followed Globally and in India by Siemens in partnership with several Colleges, Universities and State Govts like Gujarat, Karnataka, Telangana, A.P. etc and Universities/Colleges like Cincinnati, Washington, NIT Warangal, MIT (Manipal Institute of Technology)
Allegation 1: Nothing on the ground, No money spent
Truth:
- In reality, 34 t-SDIs (Technical skill development institutes) and 6 COEs (Centre of Excellence) are grounded and functioning.
- This was substantiated by a Senior officer in the Jagan Reddy govt Dr. Arja Srikanth who had given an appreciation letter to DesignTech (partner of Siemens) for the successful implementation of the project in AP.
- The handover of all these skill development institutes to the respective colleges from Siemens-DesignTech after the hand-holding period also happened during Jagan Reddy’s tenure from August 2021.
- All those institutes which includes IIIT Idupulapaya have given letters in writing that all the equipment and software were properly supplied and are in complete working condition. These have even signed the stock registers too.
- The founder of DesignTech said ‘So right from scratch to what our labs which you see today, we started very ordinary from the standard rooms of the institutes and a total 286 labs spread over 2,50,000 sqft across 40 locations have been set up… All these have been provided and the site has been approved by us,it is a huge task and once the site is ready they started getting the equipment. For that we needed 50 trucks fully loaded of material that were delivered across locations under our supervision boxes were unpacked and put at proper places and finally the installation process was done, look at the labs with current setup.’
Allegation 2: Money was routed through various shell companies and looted
Truth:
- It is entirely an issue of GST tax evasion, whatever has been routed to a few companies from Skillar is to generate some fake invoices and claim GST tax credit.
- How is AP govt responsible if some company doesn’t pay tax? From our side, we have released the amount of 371 cr which includes the required GST tax component also, so our tax obligation ends there.
- Even in the remand report of CBN, they have not produced evidence of any money trail linking CBN or any of his family members or companies.
- They have even written on page 21 para 10 “The End monies which were apparently drawn out as cash and parked with Vikas Khanvilkar etc are required to be ascertained”.
- This shows that they themselves have stated that the money trail is not ascertained to date, so how can they link anything to CBN.
Allegation 3: Contract with Siemens without inviting tender.
Truth:
- Siemens’s skill development project is based on a 90% grant in kind from Siemens, hence it is not required to float tenders when we are receiving something as a grant.
- We should also understand that this software is a patented software of Siemens, no other company in the market would have this, It is exclusive to Siemens, so where is the question of Tender here?
- Did Jagan Reddy call for tenders when he signed an agreement with Byjus? He was complimenting Byjus Ravindran for his large heart and generosity for providing his content, now we all know that Byjus is bankrupt and facing Allegations.
- The TDP government signed an agreement with Siemens only after a team of IAS officers from AP examined the agreement and the project operational in Gujarat.
- All the 9 states that implemented this project in India including Gujarat, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Jharkhand, etc. have not floated any tenders for this project and have directly signed agreements.
- Even Narendra Modi when he was chief minister of Gujarat did not call any tenders when he signed an agreement with Siemens, Can Mr Jagan Reddy dare to question the Prime minister on this?
- Many international institutes like Washington state university, Cincinati State Technical and Community College, and Southern Virginia highier education center (SVHEC) have all received millions of dollars as grant from Siemens and benefitted, Why not Andhra Pradesh?
Allegation 4: Why was there such a rush to implement this project?
Truth:
- There was absolutely no rush when this project was implemented in AP, due diligence was carried out before taking every step.
- G.O M.S 4 dt 30.06.2015 was released on 30-06-2015 and the first payment of 185 crores was released on 5-12-2015, It was only after 5 months after signing the agreement that the first payment was released.
- So where is the alleged rush? Teams were sent to Gujarat to study the project being implemented there, CITD (Central Institute of Tool Design) was approached to evaluate the entire project, so all the required steps to ensure transparency have been taken while implementing this project.
Allegation 5: There is a corruption of Rs. 371 crores in the project
Truth:
The Forensic Auditor’s report did not have the details of how much money was exactly misappropriated. Different figures are circulating in the media as there is no clarity about the amount being cited. Forensic auditor’s conclusion of not engaging a professional evaluator to evaluate project cost is incorrect as a central government agency, the Central Institute of Tool Design was engaged for the same. Physical audit was eliminated from the scope of work of forensic auditor suspiciously in a pre-bid meeting though it was initially included. The investigation was based on inadequate information and faulty methodology to directly make any allegations of misappropriation.
- Server IP address of the forensic auditor appointed by the government, Sarath and Associates, and the auditor of Jagan’s own companies, IVS and Associates, is the same. Domain of Sarat and associates: sarathcas.in. Domain of IVS and associates: ivsassociates.in.
IP Address comparison:
115.124.126.242:80
115.124.126.216:80
Closeness between the websites of both these agencies suggests there is a reason to doubt a potential link between forensic auditor and the government.