New Delhi: The Centre has said it has no knowledge of how a Rs 70-crore contract was given to an Uttar Pradesh-based social organisation whose services were notified by the Ministry of Rural Development.The usage and procurement of services of the website www.ruralskills.in was notified by the MoRD under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDUGKY). The Ministry has since claimed no knowledge about how the Rs 70 crore contract for the website was given out to an Uttar Pradesh-based social organisation.In its submission before the Central Information Commission, the Ministry has also said it has no knowledge if the data of people who used the site is secure or not.RTI queryThe matter came to light following a query was filed under the Right to Information Act in September 2018 by one Amit Kumar Singh. Singh filed a request asking MoRD and NABARD Consultancy Services Pvt. Ltd. (NABCONS) who the owner of the website, www.ruralskills.in was. Singh also asked if MoRD had procured its services, whether the procurement was done through open tendering or nomination, and for a list of bidders who participated in a pre-bid meeting and in submitting the bids.On not getting any information within the stipulated time period, he filed a second appeal before the Commission in which it was submitted that use of www.ruralskills.in was notified by the MoRD for various activities related to DDUGKY such as inviting proposals, appraisal, approval, sanctioning of projects, and monitoring and evaluation of all ongoing skill development projects by the Project Implementing Agencies (PIAs) across all states and Union Territories.Also read: CIC Pulls Up IT Ministry for Saying it Has No Information on Aarogya Setu App’s OriginsIt was also pointed out that the website name, www.ruralskills.in, was repeatedly mentioned in minutes of meetings uploaded by MoRD.The Rural Skills website.‘No satisfactory reply from Ministry, two central support agencies’It was also submitted before the CIC that no satisfactory reply was received from the PIOs of MoRD, or the two Central Technical Support Agency (CTSA) – which were NABARD Consultancy Services (NABCONS) and National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD-PR). In fact the PIOs of these two agencies clearly said that the information was only available with the ministry.During the hearing in the case on December 29, 2020, the Central Information Commissioner Vanaja N. Sarna recorded that “it was evident that representatives from MoRD and NABCONS were passing the burden of replying to RTI queries on each other and none were giving any clear, legitimate, satisfactory reply. They were all accordingly given an opportunity to submit written submissions immediately after the hearing.”Also read: Why Haven’t All Vacancies in Central Information Commission Been Filled: RTI ActivistsIt was in the written submissions that the anomalies in the matter were revealed. Siddharth Pandey, a consultant working with MoRD, said the website was owned by Hard Shell Technologies Pvt Limited (HSTPL), a company incorporated in the year 1992 as M/s Saubhagya Developers Pvt Limited but was renamed in February 2015. He submitted that its services were hired by NABCONS and NIRD to support MoRD.‘Clash of interest’The CIC also recorded his submission that HSTPL was registered at 130 Hind Nagar, Kanpur Road, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh and Abhay Singh was its managing director and owned 98.04% of its equity shares.“The same Mr Abhay Singh is also the Chief Executive Officer of an NGO, Manav Vikas Evam Shiksha Sansthan. As a matter of fact, the NGO of Mr. Abhay Singh, Manav Vikas Evam Shiksha Sansthan, has been sanctioned DDUGKY projects across many States (1 project each in Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, 2 projects in Maharashtra and 3 projects in Uttar Pradesh),” the CIC order recorded.It also pointed out, “All these projects were appraised and monitored by Ministry of Rural Development through a website www.ruralskills.in which was designed and owned by none other than Mr. Abhay Singh himself.”Thus, the CIC order recorded that “there was a clear clash of interest and it can be safely assumed that because of vested interests of certain involved parties, the sanctity of the project management was severely compromised.”Rs 70 croresThe order also noted that “the estimated sanctioned project amount for these projects sanctioned to Mr. Abhay Singh comes (to) around Rs. 70 crore.”Further, Bhim Prakash, Under Secretary and CPIO (Skills) submitted in point-wise replies that “MoRD and Central Technical Support Agency (CTSA) i.e. NABARD Consultancy Services (NABCONS) and National Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj (NIRD-PR) are not the owners of the website. The owner of the website is Hard Shell Technologies Pvt. Ltd., which may be ascertained from the website.”The copyright line of the Rural Skills website.To a question on how MoRD procured the services offered on www.ruralskills.in and if that was done through open tendering or nomination basis, he replied that the website was not procured by MoRD.He further explained that DDUGKY was a centrally-sponsored scheme where projects were being implemented and monitored through CTSAs, among which all the states were distributed. “States are using services of Technical Support Agency (TSA) for monitoring of respective projects,” he added.‘NIRD, NABCONS procured website service, not MoRD’Stating that “MoRD never procured any services for the website,” he said, “NIRD&PR and NABCONS procured their services for monitoring of their respective States in the capacity of CTSA/TSA” and that HSTPL provided services for receiving of the project proposals for all the States without any financial implications to users.To the question of whether the procurement was done through open tendering process or nomination, the Ministry official replied that this was “not applicable in view of above reply”.The reply also stated that the services of the website were being used by MoRD along with other stakeholders since December 2015 and that these were “being continued” in six states by NABCONS.The Ministry reply also stated that “no payment has been made by MoRD” in lieu of the services availed. However, it added that “payments were made by the States/CTSA/TSA of the states for monitoring the training centres. The payment was initially made at Rs 1700 per training centre + taxes, which were subsequently increased to Rs. 2000 and Rs. 2200 per training centre + taxes.”The reply also stated that NABCONS received 1,356 DDUGKY proposals by September 30, 2018 for the states where it was the appraisal agency. However, it added that “information about the size of data is not available with MoRD or NABCONS.”Ministry washes hands off data safety, security issuesTo the crucial question of whether MoRD ascertained if the portal www.ruralskills.in fulfilled the standard software data safety and security requirements as per industry standards, the Ministry reply only stated that the portal was “not procured by MoRD”.It, however, acknowledged that “project applications were filed and stored on the said website” and that “state project appraisal agencies used the website to view the stored documents and reports.” But despite such data being on the portal, the reply added that “no audit has been conducted”.Also read: Plea to Publish Names of Recipients of Unclaimed Dividends in ‘Public Interest’, Says CICAs to whether the services of www.ruralskills.in were later discontinued, the Ministry reply said on development of the Enterprise Resource Platform (ERP) system by NIRD&PR, MoRD notified its use by stakeholders in July 2018. It added that the owner of this new website – erp.ddugky.info – was MoRD and that states and Union Territories were now using this website for submission of fresh proposals.‘Appraisal data should be with states’Indicating that data security remained an issue, the Ministry responded to another query on whether it had received all data in safe and retrievable form from the owner of www.ruralskills.in following adoption of a new portal by saying, “DDU-GKY is implemented by the states so appraisal data should be with the states. Since MoRD has not procured services of the said website so contract exit clause is not applicable.”In her order, Sarna referred to the delay in providing information to the appellant saying, “Even though a point-wise reply has been provided to the appellant by the CPIO, MoRD vide the letter dated 22.12.2020, however, the same is extremely delayed. The explanation of the CPIO that he was not aware that the RTI application was returned back by the NABCONS is not sustainable as there seems to be no valid justification as to why the RTI application was transferred to NABCONS and NIRD & PR, if the information was to be provided by MoRD only.”She cautioned the CPIO MoRD “to be vigilant and provide timely replies in future.”