Belagavi: The state Legislative Council constituted a House Committee on Friday to look into the alleged irregularities in purchase of laptops by the Department of Higher Education for distribution to scheduled caste and tribe students of government polytechnics in 2016-17 and other students during the current fiscal.
Council Chairman, D H Shankarmurthy, who made the announcement, said the committee would submit its report in 15 days.
Earlier, during question hour, Mr Raghunath Malkapure of the BJP alleged that Rs 300 crore had been received in kickbacks in the purchase of 1.5 lakh laptops for distribution to first year BA, B.Com, B.Sc, engineering and medicine students next month.
He claimed that former commissioner for higher education, Dr Ajay Nagabhushan, was shunted out only because he had objected to buying the laptops through a single tender and had wanted a division-wise tender to be called instead.
Denying the charges, Higher Education Minister, Basavaraj Rayareddy, said no tender had been called so far for the purchase of 1.5 lakh laptops this year. "We have decided to call tenders division-wise to buy the laptops at the most affordable rate," he added.
The Minister said in 2016-17, the department had supplied laptops to SC/ST students of government polytechnics, buying them for Rs 14,490 each, which was lesser than the market price by Rs 10,000.
He revealed that a technical experts committee had been constituted to suggest the configuration of the laptops and claimed that the department was following the recommendations made by Dr Ajay Nagabhushan.
"I have not come across any letter from Dr Nagabhushan alleging violation of the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement in procurement of the 1.5 lakh laptops. If this was true, it would have come to the notice of the Chief Secretary," he maintained.
While leaders of the JD(S) and other opposition leaders objected to his statement, ruling party leader in the Council , minister M.R. Seetharam intervened to say that the state government had no objection to the matter being referred to a House panel.
