CPM demands probe into projects bagged by Maytas

NEW DELHI: With the Satyam scam opening a Pandora���s box, the CPM on Wednesday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to order a high-level probe into the projects sanctioned to the Maytas companies in Andhra Pradesh.

The UPA government has asked the Serious Fraud Investigation Office to probe affairs of the Satyam Computer Services Ltd. ���While this needs to be done, it is also necessary to examine the business dealings and finances of Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties Ltd,��� the CPM polit bureau said in a statement issued here.

It pointed out that the Maytas companies have been given contracts worth over Rs 30,000 crore by the Andhra Pradesh state government and have accumulated a huge amount of land.

���One example is the Rs 12,220 crore Hyderabad Metro Project. It has now come to light that the managing director of DMRC had written to the deputy chairman, Planning Commission in September 2008, protesting against the PPP model adopted in the case of Hyderabad Metro, where 296 acres of prime land has been made available to the build-operate-transfer (BOT) operator for commercial exploitation,��� the CPM said.

The party recalled that the DMRC managing director had warned of a ���big political scandal��� and a ���hidden agenda��� of the developer to ���extend the metro network to a large tract of his private land holdings so as to reap a windfall profit of four to five times the land price���.

The objections raised regarding this contract by Mr E Sreedharan, head of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation led to the removal of the DMRC as a project consultant. ���The CPM wants the prime minister to order a high-level probe into the various projects sanctioned to the Maytas companies in Andhra Pradesh along with investigation into the affairs of these two companies,��� the statement said. The CPM had earlier blamed the Satyam episode on the government���s policies of ���deregulation and financial liberalisation���.

It said the government should take lessons from the episode and desist from further emulating the ���failed system��� of the US and demanded a rehaul of corporate regulations to discipline big business. The CPM had also said that the most urgently there was need to protect the interests of the 53,000 Satyam employees.