Arms dealer Suresh Nanda is in jail after he was trapped in a bribery scandal and his passport has been impounded by the Government due to the ongoing CBI probe in two cases of alleged kickbacks in Defence deals. But the number of Central and State Government departments which have become clients of an e-commerce company he floated is increasing every day. The list now even includes the Ministry of Defence.An investigation by The Sunday Express has found that six months ago — a full one year after Nanda was named as the middleman in the Barak missile case by the Central Bureau of Investigation in its FIR — the Defence Ministry’s Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) launched a new e-portal and announced that all vendors, if they wanted to be considered for tenders, would have to register with a company C-1 India (Commerce One). Newspaper advertisements were also released by Ordnance factories announcing their association with C-1 India.Vivek Agarwal, president of C-1 India, told The Sunday Express that Nanda is “no longer” associated with the firm. But the link is unquestionable. Nanda himself boasted about floating the firm in 2000 in interviews — including to this correspondent — and the office address of the company, D-5 Defence Colony, New Delhi, has a large signboard outside listing all three Nanda flagship firms: Crown Corporation, C-1 India and Dynatron Services. M V Rao, the PMO “imposter” who was raided by the Delhi Police last February and from whose possession 1,307 pages of secret defence documents were recovered, was also a Director of C-1 India. In fact, the funding and functioning of C-1 India is the subject of the CBI probe in the Barak case and the Income Tax inquiry against him. During arguments in the Suresh Nanda passport case, the CBI alleged he had received “suspected huge foreign remittances” into the accounts of his companies C-1 India, Crown Corporation and Dynatron Services. The large volume of funds being routed to C-1 India and other bank accounts of Suresh Nanda also figure in the 597-page Income Tax appraisal report of the arms dealer. It was to “manipulate” this report that Nanda allegedly bribed Deputy Director Ashutosh Verma, the CBI said.At present, all 41 OFB factories, including its ammunition, high explosive, field gun and small arms factories are on the C-1 India e-procurement list and its website displays 49 tenders for which vendors can currently bid. OFC chairman Sudipta Ghosh, when contacted, told The Sunday Express that OFC’s contract with C-1 India began in September 2007 and came through the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals. “We did not deal with C-1 India directly but were told by the DGS&D to work with them and around 200 tenders have been completed on the basis of this e-procurement via C-1 India. I am not aware of the ownership of the company or its links with Suresh Nanda,” the Chairman said.In fact, OFC isn’t the only one doing business with C-1 India. Several Central and State Government departments are using C-1 India’s e-tendering net. These include Indian Railways, National Informatics Corporation, state government departments in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi as well as PSUs like BHEL, GAIL, ONGC and SAIL.With C-1 India’s list of clients continuing to expand despite the CBI and Income tax action, raids and now imprisonment of its founder, it was only a matter of time that its ascendancy led to other complaints landing in officialdom. Central Vigilance Commissioner Pratyush Sinha confirmed to The Sunday Express that he has received a “voluminous complaint” that a large chunk of tendering for Government Departments and PSUs was being cornered by the company which was a “front” for Suresh Nanda. “We have sent the complaint to the CVC’s technical examiner for scrutiny and will examine if any unfair means are being used by the company for its e-tendering business,” the CVC said.What is C-1 India• An e-procurement company, franchisee of C-1 of USA. Claims 76% of e-procurement market share in India • Franchise brainchild of Suresh Nanda, president says he is no longer with the firm• Andhra Govt gave C-1 India first break. All depts on its network, tenders worth Rs 25,000 cr processed. • Other State Governments including depts in Gujarat, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh signed contracts with C-1 India• C-1 gets Rs 6,000 for each tender it processes for client• Came on radar of CBI, IT when both agencies raided Nanda in 2006-07. CVC last week commenced an inquiry into its functioning and funding
