IT firm Prodigy flouted many norms.

HYDERABAD : It’s official now. On the day Information Technology minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah inaugurated Prodigy Solutions, a software firm at Cyber Towers, it was not even registered with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

During the investigation, the Cyberabad police had found that the company was inaugurated in January, 2011, but Prodigy management got it registered with RoC in February. They also discovered that Prodigy Solutions was also not registered with Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), Hyderabad, customs and income- tax authorities.

“It is mandatory for any software company to get registered with STPI and other agencies so that these companies come under the scanner of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI),” an investigating officer said.

Police found that Prodigy Solutions was started by Murali Radhakrishna with a paid-up capital of Rs five lakh along with one Ashok, who quit the partnership firm midway. Radhakrishna had ventured into business by starting a magazine ‘Prodigy’ with software and information technology-related content focusing on the student community. Later on, he started providing back-up support to two mobile phone service providers.

“After these ventures, Radhakrishna started Prodigy Solutions. He ran the company using the money collected from the unemployed youth in the name of giving training in various software courses before providing them employment,” police said. Also, Prodigy management defaulted on rent to a firm which maintains Cyber Towers on behalf of L&T. Radhakrishna took office space of 2,000sft on the sixth floor and 6,000 sft on ninth floor of Cyber Towers.

Meanwhile, Radhakrishna continues to elude police, who are still clueless about his whereabouts. It is learnt that the money in the bank accounts of Radhakrishna and Prodigy was withdrawn before he went absconding.

Radhakrishna duped nearly 2,000 youth promising jobs after collecting money ranging between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1,75,000 from them. Most victims are from rural areas, who got lured either through the call centre executives of Prodigy Solutions or through their friends who had already joined in the software firm.

Source : TOI