New Delhi: Several high profile retired bureaucrats from ministries other than telecom have been working for and with lobbyist Niira Radia. Some of them even hold stakes and directorships in her firms. These former bureaucrats offer “strategic consultancy” in public affairs for clients across sectors such as aviation, infrastructure, telecom and even some foreign governments.
VCCPL is the flagship public relations agency of Radia and manages several leading corporate clients such as the Tata Group, Unitech Ltd, Confederation of Indian Industry, Hindustan Construction Company Ltd, and has also handled the GMR Group in the past.
The GMR Group is the majority owner, with 54% stake, in Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd (DIAL), the company that after an intensely competitive international bidding process, won the mandate to develop, operate and manage the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Narula's former organisation AAI holds 26% stake in DIAL. Admitting that he is one of the directors in the firm, Narula said: "We don't do any lobbying. We handle public relations for the Tata Group and are into media consulting." He said he did not work on the GMR project and hence, there was no conflict of interest.
In 2007, Radia floated a new agency, Noesis Strategic Consulting Services Pvt Ltd, whose mandate was to manage policy affairs. The agency had two former senior bureaucrats -- former Finance Secretary C M Vasudev and former Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Pradip Baijal -- as its founding members.
Some of the high profile clients managed by Noesis included Tata Teleservices, Tata Communications, Vedanta Group, and the Oman government. Sources said the government of Oman had hired Noesis to guide it on setting up a regulatory framework for its telecom sector.
Baijal, who also served the Government as its Disinvestment Secretary, also brought in D P S Seth, a high profile former member of TRAI, to Vaishnavi in 2008. Vaishnavi did not respond to a detailed questionnaire on its association with the former bureaucrats and clients.
According to sources, Radia also had Ajay Dua, former Secretary of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP); A H Jung, former Civil Aviation Secretary and V Subramanian, former Secretary of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy working with her. Sources said the trio joined Vaishnavi in late 2009 and left after a short stay.
Jung told The Indian Express that his association with Radia and Vaishnavi was limited to "visiting the office to meet a friend on several occasions". Distancing himself from Radia and Vaishnavi, he said he must have gone there about five times. "I spent a few hours, but nothing beyond that." He denied having attended meetings, giving advice, providing consulting services or working on any project with Vaishnavi. He also denied having received any financial payment ever.
V Subramanian, who was Secretary, Non-Renewable Energy, told The Indian Express that he was a resource person for a World Bank renewable energy contract that Noesis was bidding for. "Baijal spoke to me. My biodata was given as part of Noesis when the company bid for the project. It did not win the project though." Subramanian said he did not receive any payment from Radia or Vaishnavi and this was a "one-off" project he was involved in. He is a 1971 batch IAS officer from the West Bengal cadre. D P S Seth, former BSNL Chairman and former TRAI member, said he was an independent technical consultant and Noesis was one of his clients. "I was not involved with Vaishnavi or Noesis in any regular sort of a job. Forgod's sake, I am not a lobbyist," he said. Seth said whenever Noesis approached him with a project, he took it up. "I did one project for Noesis on Oman," he said.
Source: The Indian Express