It's not easy to find the company which bagged the Rs 175-crore contract for the Taj Heritage Corridor project. There is not even a signboard outside its office. Look hard for H-10, Connaught Place, and you’ll find the narrow stairs leading to the tiny second-floor office of Ishvakoo India Private Limited.The company employs hardly 25 people and its turnover never crossed Rs 15 crore — which is why it failed to qualify for any major government contract. Then how was it picked up for the prime Taj project by the National Project Construction Corporation (NPCC), a Central government enterprise? S C Bali, NPCC chairman, told The Sunday Express: ‘‘The company is quite big and quite old. And we have used them for our contracts before.’’When NPCC pitched for the project, Ishvakoo was not in the picture. Bali wrote a letter on August 5, 2002, to UP’s Environment Secretary, R K Sharma, stating how they had discussed the Environmental Management Plan on the phone and would like to work on the project on ‘‘mutually agreed terms.’’ Instead of a formal agreement with the Uttar Pradesh government, they only signed a work contract.There was no mention of Ishvakoo Construction in the work contract either. The work order dated November 1, 2002 — a copy of which is available with The Sunday Express — states that the first payment of Rs 17 crore was being made to NPCC and that the ‘‘relevant’’ rules and regulations will be complied with. NPCC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ishvakoo for the construction, by which NPCC was slated to get 10 per cent of the value of the Rs 175-crore contract.Ishvakoo is owned by a Punjabi family hailing originally from Multan, who also runs the Radhu Cinemas in east Delhi. In 1983, a branch of the family headed by Kamal Radhu got into the construction business and named the new company named after his son, Ishvakoo. In the past two decades, the company handled small construction jobs. Its proprieters could never dream of landing a mega project and when they did, they mortgaged their house with a bank to execute it. Desipte repeated attempts, Kamal Radhu was not availble for comment.All the plans went haywire when work was stopped following the Supreme Court’s intervention. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which has been asked to probe the origin and clearance of the project, has got into the act and for two days running, Kamal Radhu has been called for questioning by the agency. In the Ishvakoo office, the staff is busy preparing papers for court since NPCC is likely to ask for being impleaded in the case.M R Arora, an NPCC consultant who retired as chief engineer from the UP Irrigation Department, is handling the fire-fighting for the company. How did such a small outfit land a mega contract? Explains Arora, ‘‘Neither the NPCC nor Ishvakoo knew what the outlay of the project was. It was a big lottery for Ishvakoo. But if they don’t get back the money they have invested on the Taj project, the Radhus may have to sell off their properties.’’CBI officials say Ishvakoo is crucial to their investigations and that they have reasons to believe that the UP Government gave several more contracts to the NPCC without signing formal agreements. Investigating officers say the Ishvakoo bosses have told them (during questioning) that the Taj job was their chance to make it big but they were now in great financial distress.Arora says NPCC went in for a back-to-back contract with Ishvakoo since NPCC didn’t have the heavy machinery required for the job and since the Government enterprise was beset with labour problems. Once they bagged the project, they received Rs 17 crore from the UP Government but when the controversy broke, the next installment of Rs 20 crore was stopped.This has had a crippling effect on Ishvakoo — out of the Rs 43.12 crore NPCC claims to have spent on the project, Rs 37 crore was invested by Radhu. Now, between answering questions of CBI officers and hiring lawyers, the company is wondering how it will get back the money it pumped into the riverbed in Agra.
