The State government is weighing whether to form a committee to inquire into the various aspects of its controversial agreement with the U.S.-based data analytics firm, Sprinklr.
By some accounts, former Additional Chief Secretary Rajeev Sadanandan, an experienced public health policymaker, is likely to head the panel. There might be others on board.
The government had, arguably, come under a cloud after the Opposition accused it of having entered into a ‘self-defeating’ Faustian pact with Sprinklr.
It said the personal health information of citizens stored in Sprinklr’s foreign servers were at stake. The ‘data trading’ firm could monetise it by selling it to private health care, pharmaceutical and medical insurance businesses.
The government had engaged the firm behind the back of the Cabinet. No file existed in the Secretariat pointing to the deal. Sprinklr did not have the informed consent of those under surveillance by government health workers to trade their electronic medical records.
The High Court is now scrutinising the agreement and has asked the government to file an affidavit.
Oppn. charge
Meanwhile, the Opposition ratcheted up its attack against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who it held responsible for the ‘scam’.
Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said Mr. Vijayan had accorded the company undue financial advantage by using the COVID-19 as a fig-leaf to cover the overtly corrupt deal.
Mr. Vijayan had rendered Kerala powerless to challenge possible contractual obligations by Sprinklr by striking the arrangement surreptitiously under U.S. law. He had not sought the Centre’s sanction for the foreign deal, Mr. Chennithala said.
In stark contrast, the Congress governments in Rajasthan and Punjab had engaged an Indian start-up in New Delhi to crunch health data to inform their respective containment strategy.
The States held the medical details of their citizens in their own data centres. The start-up merely supplied analytical tools. Mr. Chennithala demanded a CBI probe into the issue.
