The Maharashtra Congress on Thursday claimed to have exposed a tender management racket run by the previous Devendra Fadnavis government. The racket allegedly includes City and Industrial Development Corporation’s tenders worth ₹14,000 crore for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and those worth ₹1,000 crore for Metro Bhavan project at Aarey colony.
“A tender management racket was being run by ignoring, bending and even systematically framing new rules so that tenders of major projects could be allotted to some select contractors,” said spokesperson of the Maharashtra Congress Sachin Sawant.
Mr. Sawant said as part of the PMAY, CIDCO was to build 89,771 houses. The ₹14,000-crore project was spilt into four different contracts. “After Congress filed a Right to Information application, to show proper competition, a fifth company, Nagarjuna Construction Company (NCC), was asked to fill the tender. But its bid was cancelled, and to reward the company for its help it was decided to offer it the Metro Bhavan contract,” he said.
The Congress also took the issue to the PMO and the principal accountant general on September, 6, 2019.
The MMRDA (Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority) negotiated with NCC and initially showed a reduction of ₹73 crore, said Mr. Sawant. In another round of negotiations, the scope of work and a further ₹117 crore were reduced, and the final cost came to ₹972 crore. “Astonishingly, to give the tender to NCC, the tender condition was amended saying the proposed height of the building has been increased by five floors. However, after offering the tender through negotiations, the height was reduced from 32 to 27 floors,” he said.
The Comptroller and Auditor General, in its reply to the RTI, said the experience criteria were not clearly defined; strict eligibility criteria, it said, were required as the project was highly complex in nature. “The prospective bidders were not aware of the frequent changes in scope of work and rates of non-listed items, showing inadequate preparedness for tendering of such a big project. The reply of MMRDA is vague and did not address the audit contention,” it said.
CAG replied that the scope of project was not finalised prior to the tendering process. “The changes were made on the advice of participating bidders, which was not an ideal condition for transparent bidding. Further, by allowing change in eligibility criteria as per the wish of bidders, chances of cartelisation by a few bidders increased,” the CAG said.
Mr. Sawant said the CAG observations indicate that the entire process was “a model of corruption”. “It is clear the Fadnavis government is involved in this massive scam. Hence, the Congress demands a stay on these projects and an enquiry into them,” he said.
