Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government has belatedly penalised multinational consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) for its earlier role in placing Swapna Suresh, an accused in the diplomatic gold smuggling case, for a cushy job at the Space Park project of the Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure Ltd (KSITIL).

In a reply to the state government’s question regarding the work for which Swapna was appointed, the KSITIL informed that her main responsibility was organising the Space Conclave.

Her duties included finding a hotel for conducting the function, booking of rooms, coordinating cab services, booking air tickets, arranging gift packets for guests and inviting guests. On other days, she used to assist KSITIL Special Officer at the Space Park with routine tasks.

Every month KSITIL used to pay Rs 3.18 lakh, including Rs 48,000 as GST, to PwC on Swapna's account. Out of the Rs 2.7 lakh, after excluding this GST, the Anglo-American consultancy giant paid Rs 1.44 lakh to the recruiting agency Vision Technology of which Rs 1.1 lakh was Swapna's salary. The remaining Rs 34,000 was paid as commission to Vision Technology.

Another Rs 26.29 lakh was meanwhile paid for Swapna's services at the Space Park and for preparing the market report.

M Sivasankar, the former principal secretary to the Kerala chief minister, was suspended last July for favouring his associate Swapna, for the Space Park role.

On Monday, Kerala government's IT department banned PwC from taking up any of its tasks for two years for its failure to conduct enough background checks before appointing a candidate at Space Park.

Sivasankar had headed the IT department too. His nepotism as well as links to Swapna and her gold smuggling racket came to limelight with the seizure of gold at the Trivandrum International Airport by the Customs in July. Sivasankar and Swapna and several of their associates were subsequently arrested. Amid investigations Swapna's recruitment to the Space Park and the role played by Sivasankar were unravelled.

Consultancy expenses on K-FON project

Also, till September, the state government paid Rs 3.32 crore for the six consultants appointed by PwC for the K-FON project. The project manager alone was paid Rs 3.34 lakh per month. The remaining two persons received Rs 3.02 lakh and three persons Rs 2.7 lakh as salary. They are on contract for two years.