Read relevant extracts from six US Embassy cables below
26 December 2006
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US Embassy New Delhi - Cable reference id:
#06NEWDELHI8511
Senator Specter Meeting With P.m. Singh
“Senator Specter mentioned how impressed he was with the
development he had witnessed in early legs of his visits to the southern cities
of Cochin and Bangalore. Still, he wanted to pass on concerns
from some of his Pennsylvania constituents about outsourcing of
jobs from the U.S. to India. Singh noted that one of the many
positive aspects of the civil-nuclear deal would be increased opportunities
for U.S. firms such as Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse to compete
for major nuclear energy deals. Specter, smiling, reminded Singh that
General Electric also had operations in Erie,Pennsylvania. Singh
also acknowledged, however, that India still could strengthen its
market economy by focusing more on removing bureaucratic obstacles. Specter
asked if India could develop at the same pace as China, whose
leaders he acknowledged could at times be quite ruthless in their push to
develop. Singh answered that while reforms might be slower in a democracy,
but that when change occurs, it was more durable.”
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22 Feb 2007
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The Indian Government’s Cabinet Committee on Economic
Affairs (CCEA) approved a Railway proposal to set up the diesel locomotive
factory at Marhowra in Bihar. Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia was a
member of this CCEA and the Planning Commission under him falsified an
enhanced projected need for diesel locomotives
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28 Sep 2007
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US Embassy New Delhi - Cable reference id:
#07NEWDELHI4419
New Delhi Weekly Econ Office Highlights For September
24-28, 2007
“The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) has
proposed to offer loans at attractive rates to build Dedicated Freight
Corridors (DFC) in India subject to two preconditions: (1) both
east (Delhi-Kolkata) and west (Delhi-Mumbai) corridors are electrified and
(2) electric locomotive manufacturing in India is established under
public private partnerships (PPPs) with Japanese manufacturers. While India certainly
welcomes Japanese assistance in developing railway corridors (as GOI has done
with other infrastructure development projects - most notably the Delhi metro),
USG is advocating that the above two preconditions are simply not sound
economics. ¶7. (U)
The Indian Railways has asked the GOI to not electrify the Western DFC since
it is likely to handle a lot of container traffic from Indian ports and
northern Indian cities to Delhi which necessitates double stack and
triple stack container operations. Such operations require significantly
higher investment (approximately five more times) when run on electrified
lines versus non-electrified lines. INDIAN RAILWAYS SEEK PPPS FOR
MANUFACTURING DIESEL LOCOMOTIVES ------------------------- ¶8. (SBU)
GE Rail estimates that Indian Railways faces an annual deficit of 500 to 700
diesel locomotives - above and beyond the country's current diesel locomotive
manufacturing capacity. GE also notes that the Indian Railways, through its
production arm of Diesel Loco Works (DLW), has the capacity to manufacture
about 150 to 200 diesel locomotives per year or 1,000 trains in the next five
years. Given the apparent shortfall and expected future demand, Indian
Railways is seeking to enter into a PPP joint venture for the establishment
of a new greenfield locomotive manufacturing facility in India (rumored
to be in Bihar, Railways Minister Lalu Prasad's home state). GE
anticipates taking a 74 percent stake in this joint venture and thereby,
maintaining operational control. This order is valued at approximately USD 4
billion. ¶9. (SBU)
In order to meet Indian Railways' short-term locomotive needs, GE envisions
several phases, whereby a first phase launch order of 50 fully assembled
locomotives would be shipped from its manufacturing hub in Erie,PA. The
second phase would entail 450 locomotive kits to be sourced from Erie and
assembled in-country. After which, any remaining orders would be processed at
the new locomotive manufacturing facility in India. Even after this
plant is fully operational, GE still anticipates that certain core equipment,
like the rail traction and braking systems, would still be sourced from Erie along
with other maintenance and service work. GE estimates this commercial
opportunity at USD 1.3 billion with approximately USD 520 million in U.S. content
(goods and parts imported from the United States). ¶10. (SBU)
GE foresees competition from Transmash (Russia), Dalian (China),
QSY (China), and EMD (LaGrange, Illinois). GE also expects Indian
Railways to release a similar tender for the establishment of a new electric
locomotive facility. As such, GE anticipates that the Europeans and the
Japanese will be lobbying Indian Railways to increase the number of electric
locomotives.”
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11 Dec 2007
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US Embassy New Delhi - Cable reference id:
#07NEWDELHI5280
Railway Minister Lalu Reaffirms Support For Nuclear Deal
But Wants Political Consensus
“Yadav updated the Ambassador about his efforts to
continue upgrading India's railroads. The Ambassador mentioned that two U.S. firms
were interested in constructing a diesel locomotive factory.
…
The Ambassador commended Yadav on his success in turning
around Indian Railways. Yadav said that he operated the Railways according to
three words: "faster, heavier and longer." "Each word is worth
two billion dollars," he asserted. Yadav said that he hoped to capture
more of the freight market, 60 percent of which still travels by truck, by
constructing a dedicated freight corridor from Delhi to Mumbai and Ludhiana to Calcutta.
The Ambassador conveyed that two U.S. firms have expressed interest
in building a new diesel locomotive factory in Bihar, and encouraged
Yadav to ensure that the corridor would be diesel. Yadav replied that Japan's
assistance will mean that the eastern corridor will likely be electric. That
still leaves the western corridor, however, on which he planned to operate
double-stacked containers on flat wagons using diesel. He related that his
staff had traveled to China to see their double-stacked cars
operating on electric rail, but they had a 30 percent lower capacity because
they were not flat. Yadav also boasted that Indian Rail has recently
increased the train length to 58 cars carrying a total of 4000
tons, nearly double the 2300 tons they carried before. Indian Rail had even
experimented with 116 cars, he revealed.
…
Lalu was attended by four key RJD Members of Parliament
(MPs) and senior Rail Ministry bureaucrat, who greatly amplified the
Minister's thoughts as expressed in workable, heavily accented English.”
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26 April 2008
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RFQ (Request for Qualification) issued for Marhowra diesel locomotive factory Project
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3 Oct 2008
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US Embassy New Delhi - Cable reference id:
#08NEWDELHI2645
New Delhi Weekly Econ Office Highlights For The Week
Of September 29 To October 3, 2008
“TWO LARGE RAILWAY PROJECTS WITH US INVOLVEMENT
CHUGGING FORWARD
…
MAJOR RAILWAY TENDER TO BE AWARDED TO ONE OF TWO US FIRMS
CHUGGING FORWARD --------------------------------------- ¶7. (U)
The GOI decided last week to release the Request for Proposal for a $5
billion diesel locomotive project, which will be awarded to one of two
American firms. Globally only GE and EMD produce diesel locomotives; they
are, therefore, the only bidders on the project to supply 1000 diesel locomotives
and build a locomotive factory in Bihar. The RFP includes $3 billion for
equipment to be procured over 10 years, with production gradually shifting to
the new Indian plant. The remaining $2 billion will go towards maintenance
and service of the locomotive fleet. Awarding the project is expected to take
place in the first quarter of 2009.”
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31 Oct 2008
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US Embassy New Delhi - Cable reference id:
#08NEWDELHI2826
New Delhi Weekly Econ Office Highlights For The Week
Of October 27 To October 31, 2008
“JBIC TO FUND THE WESTERN DEDICATED FREIGHT CORRIDOR
…
India is the largest beneficiary of JBIC funding
(6.5% share or $13.2 billion), with an overall loan portfolio of $184.4
billion. JBIC agreed to financially support the DFC project after the Indian
Railways relented and decided to electrify the western freight corridor.
Electrification of both the Eastern and Western freight corridors limits the
ability of U.S. business to participate as they are not competitive
in the electric locomotive/rolling stock market.”
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11 Jun 2009
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US Embassy New Delhi - Cable reference id:
#09NEWDELHI1211
Fs Menon And U/s Burns Discuss New Strategic Dialogue
Architecture And Bilateral Issues
“At Burns' request, Menon promised to follow up on the
tender won by General Electric to build a railroad locomotive plant in Bihar,
which had been canceled at the last cabinet meeting before the elections.”
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This provides additional evidence that the Marhowra diesel locomotive factory Project has been created/ tailor-made at the behest of and for General Electric. General Electric has since before 2008 influenced the bid documents to ensure that a commercially lucrative contract and opportunity is created for itself using their contacts/ agents within the Indian government (like Montek Singh Ahluwalia and his aide Gajendra Haldea).
Attorney Seema Sapra, who was employed as in-house legal counsel for GE Transportation and was based in India and was advising on GE's 2010 bid, blew the whistle on corruption by GE executives in connection with this Project. General Electric executives and lawyers have not only failed to investigate the corruption but have put into effect an obstruction of justice conspiracy to cover this up.
The attorney Seema Sapra faced with a life threat from General Electric executives and lawyers filed a legal proceeding in the Delhi High Court being Writ Petition Civil No. 1280/ 2012. The Delhi High Court issued notice in this matter to General Electric Company, GE India Industrial Private Limited and GE Global Sourcing India Private Limited on 7 March 2012. A copy of the Delhi High Court order dated 7 March 2012 can be viewed on the Delhi High Court website at
http://delhihighcourt.nic.in/dhcqrydisp_o.asp?pn=49717&yr=2012
Instead of appearing before the Delhi High Court in this matter through properly authorized and competent person/s, General Electric Company lawyers and executives (including General Counsel Brackett Denniston, and GE in-house lawyers Alexander Dimitref, Bradford Berenson, and Jeffrey Eglash), caused this legal proceeding to remain hidden from General Electric Company and caused an Indian subsidiary employee K R Radhakrishnan to impersonate as the authorized signatory/ representative of General Electric Company before the Delhi High Court in these legal proceedings between 2012 and 2015 using fraudulent and forged authority documents on behalf of General Electric Company. With the help of this fraud, and using other dishonest, corrupt and illegal means, General Electric Company is attempting to cover up the corruption and FCPA complaints against it in connection with its bids for two Indian Railway tenders - the tenders for the proposed diesel locomotive factory in Marhowra and the tenders for the proposed electric locomotive factory in Madhepura. For more details on this fraud, obstruction of justice and attempted cover-up see http://geimpersonationfraud.blogspot.in/
The Court record for Writ Petition Civil No. 1280/ 2012 can be found at http://seemasapra.blogspot.in/p/updated-court-documents-in-whistle.html
Though Writ Petition Civil No. 1280/ 2012 has been disposed off (as GE executives and lawyers subverted these legal proceedings in an obstruction of justice conspiracy), the complaints against General Electric including the complaint regarding corrupt procurement of confidential draft bid documents by General Electric have not been investigated or decided.
For more on General Electric corruption in India in connection with the Indian Rail tenders for the proposed diesel locomotive factory at Marhowra and the proposed electric locomotive factory at Madhepura, see
http://geimpersonationfraud.blogspot.in/ General Electric substituted fake representative/ signatory in Indian corruption legal case
http://gecorruption.blogspot.in/ FCPA alert- General Electric paid bribes to Indian public officials using third party contractor - Aartech Consultants India Private Limited
http://gemarhowracorruption.blogspot.in/ The PwC & Vinod Sharma conflict of interest & GE corruption in Marhowra Project
http://gemarhowracorruptionpart2.blogspot.in/ Shakeel Ahmed, Indian Rail official corruptly vetted GE 2008 bid documents for Marhowra Project
http://gecorruptionpart2.blogspot.in/ General Electric corruptly obtained Indian Rail Marhowra Project bid docs before they were public
http://gecorruptionpart3.blogspot.in/ Wikileaks US Embassy cables on creation of Marhowra loco factory Project for General Electric
http://gecorruptionpart4.blogspot.in/ General Electric corruption & fraud to avoid mandatory disclosures in India tender
http://gecorruptionpart5.blogspot.in/ #FCPA Why is General Electric bidding for India electric loco tender which it does not manufacture
http://seemasapra.blogspot.com/ Seema Sapra - General Electric corruption whistle-blower: the Truth prevails
