Vijayawada: Finance minister Buggana Rajendranath has rejected the Telugu Desam’s contentions and stressed that Nara Chandrababu Naidu masterminded the multi-crore APSSDC scam.
“Chandrababu Naidu has been arrested with proper evidence,” the minister said during a short discussion on the Skill Development scam in the state Assembly on Friday. “Chandrababu was the sole architect of the Rs 371 crore scam and the money reached his own personal entities,” the minister said.
Giving a detailed power-point presentation on the APSSDC scam in the Assembly on Friday, Rajendranath said, “Apart from diverting funds to shell companies, aspiring students were cheated by the TD government in the name of skill development. While the TD government claimed to have imparted skills to a lot of students, the actual story was different.”
“As per government records, as many as 7,893 students were trained in JNTU Kakinada between 2018-19 and 2022-23 and 16,072 students in JNTU Anantapur between 2016-17 and 2021-22. It is strange that all students were enrolled in the same time period and they completed their training within five days (from March 12 to March 17, 2018). How can you train a student in a particular skill within five days,” the minister asked.
Rajendranath went into the details of the case and said the duration of such a course should be at least four to six weeks. For a course like product design, it takes 120 teaching hours through five weeks. For the manufacturing CNC course, it takes four weeks and 144 teaching hours, but the training for these students didn't even last for a week. Perhaps, it was not training but only a demonstration of the course.”
“This is how the students were fooled, this is how they were robbed in the name of skill development,” the minister said.
“Through this Assembly, I want to inform the people how massive the magnitude of this scam was. On the one hand, the corrupt politicians siphoned off public money. On the other hand, they also deceived the students. They played with the future of the students across the state by depriving them of proper training. Students were fooled in the guise of skill training,” the minister stated.
The finance minister reiterated that Chandrababu was the sole architect of the Rs 371 crore Skill Development scam and that the money reached his own personal entities. He showed the details on the big screens through the power-point presentation about the scam, with diagrams of distribution of funds.
The minister said Naidu used Siemens Company’s name to divert government funds of Rs 371 crore to shell companies without inviting tenders.
"We don't have any intention of targeting Naidu by way of political vendetta. The former chief minister was arrested with proper evidence. However, the friendly media of Naidu has been claiming that no scam has happened in APSSDC,” he said.
Rajendranth said all those involved in the scam were sent to jail. Naidu was not an exception to the law, he said and stressed the need for the CID to further investigate the case in a detailed manner. He asked, "In what capacity was Ganta Subbarao appointed to prominent posts by Naidu?”
“In 2015-16, a sum of Rs 371 crore was released but Design Tech was a shell company. How can they enter into an agreement with the Siemens company without mentioning the date? Why did Nandamuri Balakrishna and other TD MLAs escape from the discussion on Skill Development scam? IT notices to Naidu are proof of the corruption indulged in by him."
