C1 Corporation, A Suresh Nanda Group Company Allegedly Involved In Corruption Scandal

Online, October 30, 2011 (Newswire.com) - It seems that trouble never ends for ex Lt-Cmdr, Indian Navy, Mr Suresh Nanda, Chairman of Suresh Nanda Group. Already in the cbi net for barak missile corruption charge of giving kickbacks to the tune of Rs 600-900 cr, charge for bribing income tax officer to the tune of Rs 10 cr; fresh evidence of corruption saga has errupted against his e-tendering company C1 corporation.

C1 Corporation, is a Suresh Nanda Group company as it hold 67% equity in C1 India through a mauritius based firm, has created an e-tendering application and has been deploying these applications at various government and defence organizations without any tender via rate contract, subventing the government tendering rules. RTIs put by journalist at various government bodies revealed that there are confirmed deployments at over 23 locations including state government, dgs&d, nic, railways though the actual number is suspected to be in hundreds.
C1 corporation's revenue model involves charging a percentage of tendered amount as the fees of using the software. This kind of practice of charging a percentage of tendered amount that sometimes even runs in crores exists only in deals done with C1 corporation, e-tendering applications worldwide are sold for annual licenses of average usd 42000 or rs 21 lakhs. There are several Indian firms that sell this e-tendering application with similar features in less than rs 10 lakh for an annual license. C1 corporation on the other hand charges a percentage of tendered amount, a 1% charge on an annual tendered amount of rs 1000 crore which is not uncommon for indian PSUs amounts to Rs 10 crore as the annual cost of software. Wouldnt you call it sheer exploitation of government money? The matter has been doing unofficial rounds in the software circles when anonymous emails highlighting several anomolies in C1 deals with government organizations appeared last week. The matter is expected to be picked by CBI.

There are over 17 listed e-tender software vendors in india, several of them having iso 27001, cmm level 5 and several other security certifications and empanelments. Evaluation by Information security experts on the features and claims made by these companies reveal no major difference in quality and usability of application in the top 6 software companies. Further investigation reveals that C1 Corporation software does not even address basic security concerns such as a 128 bit encrypted data transfers and ranks 11th among overall quality and security. It makes the situation even more questionable as to why government has allowed this Suresh Nanda Group company to sell its software at cost-to-company that is over 100 times as charged by other software companies.

For readers unaware of the reputation of the Suresh Nanda Group, it has already been involved in several corruption scandals. In March, 2008, Mr Suresh Nanda was charged with recieving kickbacks in Barak missile deal and also were arrested by CBI in the same connection. He was earlier also charged with bribery charges to the tune of Rs 10 cr where income tax officer Mr Ashutosh Verma was also remanded to judicial custody along with Mr Nanda. CBI already has several cases running against Mr Suresh Nanda whose passport has been confiscated and has been disallowed to travel except with special permission.