 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. The AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu has been facing charges of massive corruption in different departments. The opposition led by the DMK has even submitted a charge sheet of different charges, different corruptions by the ministers to the government of Tamil Nadu and has sought action against them. The Arapuri Ekam Anti-Corruption Organization has also released documents substantiating their claims on the corruption by different ministers. To discuss more about this, we have with us Mr. Jairam Mucatation of the Arapuri Ekam. Welcome sir. So to begin with, the AIADMK government is being alleged of fixing tenders in favour of few people. How do you substantiate your claims on such fixing of tenders? Yeah, so whatever tenders that are happening in Tamil Nadu government, most of the majority of them we call them as F-tenders which are fixing tenders and not E-tenders as the chief minister claims it to be. We have released evidences of many of these corruption. When we say that these are given to ADMK people, we can give proof in almost many departments. For example, if you take the corporation Chennai Corporation, Coimbatore Corporation, we have released evidences of how tenders were awarded to the brother of sitting minister, Mr. S.P. Vedemani. He is the minister for local administration and his brother's company, Sindhilanco, wins along with another person called Rajan Ratnasamy. They two alone participate in almost 47 tenders and in these 47 tenders, this Rajan Ratnasamy person who competes along with Sindhilanco. Sindhilanco is a firm belonging to the minister's brother, Mr. S.P. Anbarasamy and with the compete amongst themselves. What we have to see is that this Rajan Ratnasamy is said to be working in the same Sindhilanco company itself and they both upload the tenders from the same IP address. They upload the tenders one after the other and the phone number given for both of these people are same in the Coimbatore Corporation website. So, they are one and the same. So, how tender transparency act in Tamil Nadu has been violated, how tender fraud has been done violating IPC sections, how favoritism and enrichment of people who are relatives of minister S.P. Vedemani itself has happened violating the Prevention of Corruption Act. So, there are so many violations which amounts to corruption and these are the tenders what we call as F-tenders favoring ADM case people itself. The government has denied such charges and have claimed that these E-tenders are completely transparent. How do you substantiate your claims on such a fixation by the government and the officials? See, today the chief minister says that every tender is a E-tender. Let us look at what are the claims that he makes. He says that any payment of EMD, earnest money deposit that needs to be deposited before the closing of the tender, this can be made, the payment can be made through email. The payment can be done through email, probably he means that it can be done online. Now, we challenge the chief minister, we challenge the local administration minister, we challenge all ministers to show from their department, let the chief minister show from his IAS department or PWD department the link for making online payment of EMD, it is not there. We have made several representations to the government asking for this EMD payment to be made online, none of this has been done so far. Secondly, chief minister claims that all documents needs to be uploaded only online and therefore no one knows who is bidding. Now, we have released evidences of highway tenders when the clauses, the conditions clearly says that they should not only be uploaded online, but the technical bid documents has to be handed over to the superintendent engineer before the tender closes. So, there is a physical point of contact that the superintendent engineer knows, he says no one knows before closing of the tender, but on the other side you have to get missionary certificate from the same engineer that your missionary is in working condition. So, the contractors have to get this certificate from the engineer and submit it. So, the engineer knows well before the closing of the tender, who are all the people who want to participate in the tender and these are the ways, these are the physical points of contact that is being used to fix tenders. And on top of it, we have emailed at least four times so far, clearly mentioning who is going to be the winner of each of this tender before the opening of the tender. If no one knows before opening of the tender, how did we get to know and each of this time it is the same person who has been declared the winner of the tender. So, it shows clearly that all these tenders are fixed tenders which is fixed in favor of a particular person that may be a person close to the minister, close to the chief minister or you know close to officials, we do not know that has to be investigated to see whether bribery has been, whether any money has been shared between them, any bribery has been paid all that is a matter of investigation, but it is extremely clear that these are all F-tenders. But in spite of all your allegations and even the cancellation of a few tenders by the court, the government seems very much unfazed of all such actions. Has the airport come to explore any legal remedies to this problem? Yes, definitely the government has been continuously coming up with the F-tenders after even after the expose. It shows that they are there to make money at all costs, they are ready to loot people's money at all costs before the election. So, we definitely need also need to take the legal route, we have complained of many of these tenders to direct rate of vigilance and anti-corruption with respect to Chennai corporation, ration, Tamil Nadu ration scan, many others, but you know there are certain tenders that have been cancelled, Bharat net tender was cancelled after very clearly establishing that this tender is a fixed tender, so that the central government gave a director to cancel the tender. Number two, the direct rate of vigilance and anti-corruption, of course we cannot expect any action to be taken by them because they come directly under the same government and how will they take action against the ministers who are above them. So therefore, we have to take the legal route, move the course, we have done it in a few cases where the courts are hearing the cases with respect to the corruption in Chennai and Bharat net corporation and it is going on. With respect to the other complaints which still at the DVAC, we have to go through the legal route and challenge them, but on the other side it is also important to create awareness amongst people, pressurize through them and by doing so what we have been able to achieve is that several tenders of such nature have been cancelled by Chennai corporation was cancelled, by metro waters was cancelled while we exposed it. And number two, after exposing today for the corruption behind the road tenders, this whole favoritism, today citizens have come forward and have been asking for milling the road before laying off the road after exposing the corruption in the milling. So once citizens become aware and starts questioning in the last one and a half years, now we have seen within Chennai at least that every road is being milled. If not every road at least most of the roads are being milled, the top layer being scratched away and then the road is being laid. This is what happens when citizens become aware, citizens question the corruption and that is what will result in long-term changes as well.