Cong-led Oppn raises PPE kit, brewery scams in Kerala Assembly
Thiruvananthapuram(The Uttam Hindu): The Congress-led Opposition on Wednesday accused the Kerala government of graft. Led by veteran Congress legislator, Ramesh Chennithala, the Opposition accused the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan-led government for engaging in massive corruption deals involving PPE kits and the sanction for a new brewery unit in Palakkad to a controversial liquor company whose director was in jail in the Delhi excise policy case.
Chennithala raised this in his speech on the floor of the Assembly and said whatever the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India brought out in its report about the purchase of PPE kits in 2020 (when the Covid pandemic struck hard), is exactly the same issue that they raised a few years ago. The CAG report revealed that PPE kits which were available for Rs 550 per piece were not purchased and instead more expensive ones were purchased at a cost of Rs 1,550 per kit, which caused a loss of Rs 10 crore to the government.
“The CAG report has upheld all what we had raised soon after the purchases were done in 2020. At that time the Vijayan government and the Left supporters described us as anti-Kerala people. But now the truth has surfaced and the defence they put up has been proved wrong. It has now surfaced that this was a corrupt deal,” said Chennithala. With regards to the brewery scam, which has gathered steam outside the Assembly also, with protests by both the Congress and the BJP, Chennithala said a few years ago they thwarted an attempt by CM Vijayan to give licences to some firms.
“The present attempt by Vijayan to give sanction to the controversial firm speaks volumes on the way this government will go to any extent. The licence given to Oasis Commercial Pvt Ltd should be cancelled as it is due to the keen interest taken by Vijayan that this licence was given on the sly,” he said. Meanwhile to buttress the findings of the CAG, Leader of Opposition (LoP) V.D. Satheesan on Wednesday released documents pertaining to a PPE kit manufacturing company based in Tirupur in Tamil Nadu, stating that they were ready to supply PPE kits at a cost of Rs 550 per piece, but the Vijayan government gave it to San Pharma a company based near Mumbai.
“Not only was the Mumbai firm given the full advance payment for the entire purchase, but also, they charged Rs 1,550 for each PPE kit,” he said. Meanwhile the then Finance Minister and veteran CPI-M leader Thomas Isaac said the BJP government at the Centre has destroyed every national body and institution and the CAG is one of them. “The CAG report does not mean anything as everyone now knows what they are up to. They tried to play games with the state-supported KIIFB and see what happened. So this report that has come out needs to be seen in that way only,” said Isaac.
Oasis Commercial Pvt Ltd, whose top official was previously jailed in the Delhi excise policy case, received approval to establish multiple facilities in the water-scarce district of Palakkad. These include an ethanol plant, a multi-feed distillation unit, an Indian-made foreign liquor bottling unit, a brewery, a malt spirit plant, and a brandy/winery plant at Kanjikode on a 26-acre plot purchased two years ago.
