Bengaluru: Even after nine months, M2M Media Network LLP, a private company, has not written any letter to the government so far, even after officials instructed regarding the safety and confidentiality of the geographical locations and records of the survey. The GPS and other confidential records and information collected with the survey have been in the possession of the private company for the past one year.
The Transport Department has shown interest in releasing Rs 25.00 lakhs to M2M Media Network LLP to conduct a survey for the Shakti Yojana among the guaranteed projects but has shown disinterest in receiving the documents that were not submitted with the survey report from M2M. Also, there have been strong allegations that the officials of the Transport Department have committed dereliction of duty in this case.
There was a heated debate in the Legislative Council between the administration and the opposition over the expenditure of crores of rupees in the name of survey, study and evaluation on the guarantee scheme. Amidst this development, the negligence of the Transport Department in obtaining GPS and other documents related to the survey has come to the fore.
The Transport Department has provided a file containing 84 pages of information in response to the information sought under the RTI in this regard. No documents were found in the file regarding the Transport Department writing a letter in support of the letter written by M2M Media Network Private Limited.
The Transport Department had issued an order to M2M Media Private Limited on September 20, 2023, to conduct a survey on the Shakti scheme. It had also instructed KSRTC in the same order to release a grant of Rs. 25.00 lakhs.
After this, the final survey report was submitted to KSRTC on January 22, 2024. The government, which reviewed this report, asked whether M2M Media Private Limited had conducted a survey covering all aspects and submitted a report as per the letter issued on August 31, 2023. If not, the Secretary to the Government of the Transport Department wrote a letter to the KSRTC Managing Director on May 13, 2024, requesting that the report covering all aspects be examined and submitted to the government.
The KSRTC Managing Director had written a letter to M2M Media Private Limited as per this letter. The company, which replied to this letter, wrote a letter on June 24, 2024. The company also wanted the government to write a separate letter regarding the geographical locations of the survey, security of documents and maintaining confidentiality.
This matter was discussed in the Transport Department till January 23, 2025. There was a discussion between the officials and the Secretary to the Government of the Transport Department, NV Prasad, about writing a separate letter regarding maintaining the confidentiality of other data and documents, including GPS. However, the government has not written a separate letter in this regard in the file. It is learnt that this file was closed on January 23, 2025.
Even though this letter reached 9 months ago, neither the Transport Department nor the KSRTC has written a separate letter to M2M Media Private Limited till now, a Transport Department official confirmed to ‘The File’.
‘The government itself has released Rs 25.00 lakh for conducting the survey. M2M Media Private Limited has also conducted the survey with this money. As mentioned earlier in its letter, this organization was supposed to submit a report along with other documents, including GPS. It has also submitted the final report to the government without any of these documents. The competent authority that received this report has not even seriously examined this matter. It is not right that M2M Media Pvt Ltd wrote a letter saying that a separate letter should be issued by the government after the KSRTC MDU wrote a letter. All types of documents collected by conducting a survey with government money are the property of the government, says an official of the transport department.
M2M Media Network, which conducted a survey of four guarantees including the Shakti Yojana at a cost of Rs 1 crore and submitted a report to the government, had said in its letter that GPS records and assembly constituency-wise photo copies would be provided in this regard. However, the issue of ‘confidentiality’ regarding the submission of these documents was not mentioned or even mentioned in the initial proposal.
RTI documents revealed that M2M Media Network, which conducted a survey of the Shakti Yojana and submitted a report to the government, among the guarantees implemented by the state Congress government, did not submit GPS records and assembly constituency-wise photo copies in this regard.
M2M Media Network had submitted a proposal to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on August 31, 2023, to conduct a survey of other guarantee schemes, including the Shakti Yojana. Dr HV Vasu of the organization had said in his proposal that the survey would be conducted under scientific models.
The data collection is as described in the order from 1 to 5 of the survey proposal submitted by M2M to the government. It was said that modern technological methods would be used for the survey. While submitting the survey report, it had said that it would provide a report with GPS location data and photographs of the parts of Karnataka where the public opinion was collected.
The M2M company had said that it would provide these supplementary documents to prove the authenticity and honesty of its survey report. However, according to the information provided by the Transport Department, many doubts were raised about the authenticity, honesty and reliability of this survey.
RTI documents revealed that the government secretary of the department had directly directed the department to prepare a file for 4(G) exemption without seeking anyone’s opinion.
No documents were found in the files of the Finance Department about seeking the opinion of the administrative departments before granting 4(G) exemption for the survey. It was superficially seen that the officials had committed dereliction of duty by granting 4(G) exemption directly at their level without getting the proposal from the administrative departments.
The pre-election survey conducted by M2M Media Network Company’s website Eedina.com had predicted that the Congress would get an absolute majority in the 2023 assembly elections. The Congress party had given Rs 1 crore to the same company to conduct a survey of guarantees worth Rs 58,000 crore within two months of forming the government. It was a matter of debate.
Many officials, who claimed that the survey should have been conducted by the ISECC and the assessment authorities regarding the guarantees, had expressed objections to the fact that it was entrusted to the M2M Media Network Company, which only provides services like publishing and printing.
The administrative procedures related to the implementation of the guarantees were in force till June and July. Even after this, confusion continued in the implementation of the scheme. Most of the beneficiaries have not been paid money till now. Amendments regarding the guidelines continued till August.
Moreover, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, which had paid M2M Media Network Rs. 25 lakhs to conduct the survey, had not disclosed the documents regarding the agreement and conditions entered into in this regard.
However, it may be recalled that the survey report released by M2M Media Network in July itself had opened the way for doubts that the guarantees had been successful.
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