New Delhi: The Videocon group is a conglomerate with interests in consumer electronics, home appliances, oil & gas, telecom & media, among others.
The list of debarred entities from India include two Kolkata-based firms B R & Sons and Hemant Tibrewal, and three Delhi-based entities -- Om Prakash Jindal, Upasana Jindal and S M Scientific Instruments Pvt Ltd.
These five entities were debarred by the World Bank in January this year and the sanctions would be in place for three years till January 2013.
Other Indian entities in the list include Nestor Pharmaceuticals, GAP International and Surendra Singh. While Nestor has been banned from July 2007 till July 2010, the two others have been debarred permanently.
In January 2009, World Bank disclosed that it had banned three Indian firms -- Satyam Computer Services, Wipro Technologies and Megasoft Consultants -- from receiving direct contracts from the Bank group under its corporate procurement programme.
"The World Bank Group has decided to make public the names of all companies that have been debarred from receiving direct contracts from the Bank Group under its corporate procurement programme. This change was made in the interest of fairness and transparency," World Bank had said in a statement in January last year.
Satyam was debarred for a period of eight years starting September 2008 while Wipro was banned for four years starting June 2007. The World Bank debarred MegaSoft for four years, beginning December 2007.
Videocon appeals against ban
Blacklisted by the World Bank for alleged corruption and wrong doing, Videocon Industries today said that it has moved a petition to revoke the ban.
"We approached the World Bank in February, 2010, to revoke the ban ... after some hearings, we hope it will be done," Videocon Chairman Venugopal Dhoot told PTI, shortly after the global lender's decision became public.
Dhoot said that the action came on account of some wrong information given by one of its employees in a tender in 2003 for supplying airconditioners worth about USD 50,000.
"We suspended that employee and took disciplinary action. We have so far not supplied anything to the World Bank," he said, adding that given the size of the group this was not a very significant order and his firms would not do anything wrong for securing any supply order.
After the tender documents were filed, the World Bank found the wrong information and they debarred the firm, he said.
In its notification, World Bank said Videocon Industries Ltd has been barred from doing any business with it for violating "procurement guidelines", for a period of three years, beginning January 11, 2010.
It further said that the ineligibility might be reduced by up to one year, if after two years of ineligibility, the Bank's Sanctions Board finds Videocon of having taken "satisfactory" remedial actions.
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