Senior IT official resigns amidst row

Arjun RaghunathFirst Published : 28 Feb 2010 01:41:00 AM ISTLast Updated : 28 Feb 2010 10:00:49 AM IST

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It might be a coincidence. A senior official of the Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) has resigned at a time when a controversy has been snowballing over awarding the Rs 5-crore contract for the management of the State Data Centre (SDC) to Reliance Communications.


Mohan Sukumar, Manager-ITeS with KSITM, has resigned from the post about a month ago. It is reliably learnt that Mohan Sukumar was asked to resign by the Chief Minister’s office after the issue became controversial.

It is more interesting to note that he had joined KSITM immediately after the tendering process for the SDC had begun and was also in charge of the tendering process and had quit immediately after the contract was awarded to Reliance.

IT Secretary Ajay Kumar, however, said that Mohan Sukumar had quit as he got a better offer from some other company. “Mohan Sukumar’s resignation had nothing to do with the awarding of tender for the SDC.

Reliance was awarded the contract through a transparent tendering process and there is no meaning in the ongoing controversies,’’ he told ‘Express’.

He also said that Reliance had been awarded the contract for facility management services of the SDC and they would not have any access to the data. Earlier, Tata Consultancy Services was carrying out the facility management service under the supervision of the CDAC.

Data of the State Government’s computer networks are stored in SDC and most of the government websites are also hosted in it. It is feared that Reliance would get access to these data which sparked off the controversy.

Started in 2005, SDC has been managed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing with the assistance of TCS until the contract between the State Government and CDAC expired in 2008.

Later, the State IT Department initiated fresh tendering process through KSITM. It is alleged that though Keltron and several other State Government agencies had expressed their willingness to take over the management of the SDC, the request was turned down and tendering process started in April, 2008.

It was alleged that Mohan Sukumar, who had earlier worked with CDAC, was appointed to the KSITM by the middle of 2008 under the influence of some top officials in the IT Department and was also given the charge of the tendering process for SDC. Thereafter, tendering norms were revised, allegedly with the intention of paving a smooth entry for Reliance.

KSITM Director Rathan Khelkar, however, said: “The tender norms were revised since we wanted to have state-of-the-art facilities at the SDC.’’