BHOPAL: Alleged breach in

state electronic development corporation (MPSEDC) software had led to the Rs 3,000-crore scam, forcing the government to revoke nine of its major tenders floated in 2018.

Investigators believe all tenders issued by MPSEDC since 2013 will perhaps exceed Rs 80,000 crore. It was only after income-tax raided aides of chief minister

's close aides, Madhya Pradesh government on Wednesday got economic offences wing (EOW) to register an FIR into the scam to take on ‘blue-eyed’ bureaucrats and politicians of the erstwhile BJP government, say sources.

September 7, 2006

: Department of Information Technology, Madhya Pradesh adopts e-tendering System using the online platform in 2006 as "No Cost to GoMP".

March 25, 2007

: PWD floats first online tender.

April 24, 2012:

MP government appoints Madhya Pradesh state electronic development corporation (MPSEDC), as the Nodal Agency for e-procurement project.

January 31, 2013

: MPSEDC signs agreements with M/s Tata Consultancy Services with Antares Systems Ltd as the new Implementation Agency for end-to-end e-Procurement solutions.

March 2018

: MPSEDC detects fraud and criminal fixing of tenders floated by various departments worth Rs 3000 cr. Congress makes it an issue to take on BJP citing it to be much bigger than ‘Vyapam’. Antares Systems Limited (ASL) - System Developer for MP e-Procurement System was asked to conduct an internal audit to find the cause.

April 11, 2018

: Root Cause Analysis (RCA) was submitted by ASL to MPSEDC claiming ‘content has been modified’ appeared in the lowest bidders’ submitted rates in three tenders floated by Madhya Pradesh Jal Nigam Limited (MPJNL) -- MPJNM/TENDER NO-91, MPJNM/TENDER NO-93 and MPJNM/TENDER NO-94. Therefore, a breach. Notably, every time a record is saved in the database a fresh identification One Way Hash (OWH) is assigned to that record. Certain tenders when were opened on the official dates, exhibited ‘content has been modified’ in the lowest bidder’s submitted bid records. This was apparently due to fudging of the data after the last date of submission of tenders that e-Procurement System captured different OWH value.

April 17, 2018:

ASL later informed MPSEDC that in the following tenders as well it was found that ‘content has been modified’ appeared in the lowest bidders’ submitted rates: Public Works Department (PWD) -- PWD/TENDER N0 49813, PWD/TENDER N0 49982, PWD/TENDER N0 49985: Madhya Pradesh Road Development Corporation (MPRDC) - MPRDC/TENDER N0 786: Water Resources Department (WRD) - WRD/TENDER N 10030 and WRD/TENDER N0 10044.

May 5, 2018:

ASL gives and RCA of tender No MPJNM/TENDER NO-91 to Nandkumar Brahme, the then Nodal Officer, eProcurement System, MPSEDC. On which another request for RCA was placed by Brahme vide letter NO MPSED/EPROC/01/322 dated 09-05-2018 for RCA for the two tenders - MPJNM/TENDER NO-93 and Tender MPJNM/TENDER NO-94. In an internal inquiry, criminal and fraudulent activity by way of criminal manipulation of the IT infrastructure of MPSEDC that uses the eProcurement System was discovered.

May 8, 2018:

Principal Secretary (PS), Science and technology Department Manish Rastogi – who had joined the department on January 6, 2018, sent a detailed report to the Chief Secretary, Madhya Pradesh citing detection of criminal manipulation of e-procurement system database. He recommended registration of a criminal case by state economic offences wing (EOW) in tenders floated by MPJNL, PWD, MPRDC and WRD.

May 11, 2018:

Then chief secretary B P Sing, in turn, asked the EOW to investigate cases as cited in the Rastogi’s report.

June 2018

: MP government transfers IAS Manish Rastogi

June 12, 2018

: EOW led by IPS officer Madhu Kumar issues notices to various departments for documents.

July 30, 2018:

EOW confiscates 9TB data from MPSEDC.

August 2018

:

government declares MPSEDC a ‘protected system’ under Section 70 of IT Act 2000.

September 25, 2018

: Congress seeks Election Commission’s intervention in the scam questioning why the chief secretary’s orders to register an FIR and begin investigations were not followed for a month.

September 26, 2018:

rejects PIL seeking a court-monitored CBI investigation into the ‘scam’ terming it as politically motivated.

October 2018

: EOW approaches Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) New Delhi for help to investigate the digital scam.

December 2018:

CERT-In collects 11 hard disks from MPSEDC for its forensic analysis. Five scientists led by CERT special director Om Veer Singh were in Bhopal between December 4 and 7.

February 2019

: CERT-In sends a report to the EOW, confirming that e-tenders were ‘modified’ through unauthorized access in the software. CERT-In has sent IP addresses of systems that were used to hack three tenders floated by MP Jal Nigam — numbers 91, 93 and 94. Asks EOW to send logs and other details of six more tenders for further investigation.

April 11, 2019

: EOW registers FIR into the scam against five government departments, directors of seven private companies, unknown bureaucrats and politicians under sections of forgery, prevention of corruption act and IT Act. The action comes three days after income-tax raids on aides of CM Kamal Nath's close aides triggered a state-Centre confrontation.

Companies under the scanner for having fraudulently benefited in some of the tenders are

MPJNM/TENDER NO-91: GVPR Engineers Limited

MPJNM/TENDER NO-93: Indian Hume Pipe Company Limited

MPJNM/TENDER NO-94: JMC Projects (India) Ltd

PWD/TENDER N 49982: Ram Kumar Narwani, Bhopal.

PWD/TENDER N 49985: Ram Kumar Narwani, Bhopal

WRD/TENDER N 10030: Mantena Constructions Ltd.

WRD/TENDER N 10044: Sorathia Velji Ratna & Co, Gujarat