Gujarat IT firm boss missing,staff knock on Modi’s door

“Around 100 SIS employees are planning to take out a silent march on Saturday to the CM’s office in Gandhinagar,” said Manoj Bhagchandani,senior vice-president and national head of business development at SIS that has branch offices in Ahmedabad,Vadodara,Mumbai,New Delhi,Goa,Jaipur,Pune,Bhopal and Hyderabad.

The move comes after no action was taken following complaints to the police and representations to Chief Minister’s Office,about Kakkad siphoning off money along with three other top rung SIS officials.

The apex body of Information Technology firms in Gujarat,GESIA (Gujarat Electronics and Software Industries Association) has also created a four member ‘empowered committee’ to probe the matter. The two-decade old company was one of the 350 members of GESIA and Kakkad its president for the last two years,until an extraordinary executive committee meeting last month selected a new president.

“We do not have any idea of the status of the company. The company was a member of GESIA. We do not have any information other than what the media has said. We are not aware of what is going on,” said Pankaj Shah,the new president of GESIA and one of the four members of the probe committee that was constituted a month back.

The situation surrounding the company’s irregularities became serious after State

Bank of India (SBI) issued a public notice last week warning people against dealing with the company. The property of SIS is mortgaged to a consortium of banks led by SBI as security against various credit facilities granted to the IT firm. Incidentally,SIS was the “diamond sponsor” at the Gujarat government sponsored Vibrant Gujarat Global Investment Summit 2013 and had bagged the GESIA award for being the “best computer hardware/system integrator-Gujarat” for four consecutive years between 2008 and 2011.

Navin Bhasin,ex-CEO of the company who continues to be an SIS employee,told The Indian Express ,”After we came to know that Prem Behl,a Delhi-based independent director and Samir Kakkad,brother of Sunil Kakkad,had resigned in May and June,I resigned as I was left with no powers as CEO. We tried to file an FIR in Vastrapur police station,but the police only took a complaint about non-payment of salaries to the tune of Rs 25 crore. I even wrote to the CM and requested him to pay the employee salaries from his welfare fund but have not received any response yet.” According to Bhasin,SIS borrowed about Rs 1,200 crore from the banks in the last five years.

According to him,protests by employees stand a chance of fizzling out as the company is left with only 600 of the 1400 employees it originally had. “Most of have quit the company and others are busy looking for jobs,” he claimed.

An anonymous blog run by employees of the firm has surfaced that enlists a chronology of events that led to the ‘scam’,recent developments and employee testimonials.