American Focussed firm fined Rs 21 crore for outsourcing work to India
An American company that has outsourced its tender work to an Indian firm for Rs 55 lakh has been slapped with Rs 21 crore fine by the US government agency. The company, Focussed Technologies Imaging, has agreed to pay the fine. Focussed joint partners, Charles Tabis and Julie Benver, have not only agreed to pay the fine but also the fees for outsourcing the job. They agreed that they had illegally outsourced the work to an Indian sub-contractor. They, however, said they were innocent to the charge that they should not have outsourced the work relating to exposing the personal details of American citizens to outsiders. Charles and Julie fully co-operated with the authorities in the investigations. The work for which Focussed won the US contract related to digitising the fingerprints of 220 million Americans and creating a database. Along with the fingerprints of the Americans, their social security numbers, date of birth and body profile are also included in the card prepared. The US agency ruled that such a fund of information being outsourced was violation of the law of secrecy. The contract also underlined that 50% of the work should be done by the physcially handicapped people. The company, however, tried to conceal that fact that it had outsourced the work for Rs 55 lakh in order to make a massive profit. In the event, it has agreed to pay Rs 20.72-crore penalty.
