Congress smartphone scam bigger than Rs.20 crore, says BRS

The BRS has alleged a scam exceeding Rs 20 crore in smartphone procurement for Anganwadi workers under Poshan Abhiyan. The party has demanded a vigilance probe, citing pricing discrepancies and questioning maintenance costs in the tender process.

Hyderabad: The BRS on Thursday escalated its attack on the Congress government, alleging that the smartphone procurement for Anganwadi workers under the Centre’s Poshan Abhiyan scheme was not a minor irregularity but a scam exceeding Rs 20 crore if actual market prices were taken into account.

Addressing the media at Telangana Bhavan, BRS leader Manne Krishank said the Union government sanctioned Rs 54 crore for supplying smartphones to 38,130 Anganwadi workers to enable digital data collection. He said the per-device allocation was fixed at Rs 11,800 after revisions made in 2024.

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The party has demanded a vigilance inquiry and said the government must clarify whether the procurement was done transparently. He warned that if no probe was ordered within a week, the BRS would move court.

Krishank said the State government, through the Women and Child Welfare department headed by Minister D Seethakka, issued a tender for Samsung A06 phones and claimed the cost per handset was about Rs 11,600. However, he said the same model with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage was available in the retail market for around Rs 8,249.

The BRS leader stated that if the open market price was considered, the total expenditure for the phones should have been far lower and the difference pushes the alleged irregularities to over Rs 20 crore. This is far higher than the Rs 8.44 crore discrepancy initially suspected, after considering the online price of the same phone.

He also questioned the government’s claim that nearly Rs 10 crore from the tender amount was kept aside for maintenance, questioning how the need for maintenance costs could arise immediately after purchase.