The Indian Express   20.08.2012

Civic body wants to check ‘viability’ of low rates quoted

After civil works contractors (CWC) tendered abnormally low bids to
the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation for procuring petty contracts in
the 24 civic administrative wards and four hospitals in the city, the
civic administration will conduct a ‘viability test’ of such low rates.

The BMC has instructed these 31 contractors to carry out the
petty civil works at rates quoted by them, after which the work will be
monitored by a third party auditor and a final report will then be
submitted to the administration.

The viability test is aimed at verifying whether all the 31
contractors from the 24 wards will actually be able to complete the
work within their estimates, said officials.

The civil works contracts include all minor ward-level civil
works such as repairs and maintenance of internal roads, streetlights,
footpaths and so on.

A senior civic official said the contractors would be asked to
undertake selected contracts on a pilot basis. These contractors will
have to provide supporting documents and authentic bills of all the
materials procured to prove that they have completed the works based on
the rates quoted by them, he said.

These works and the bills will be scrutinised by the civic
administration’s vigilance department and the third party auditor, after
which the final contracts will be awarded, said the official.

The decision to conduct viability tests was taken after 116
contractors had quoted unusually low bids for carrying out petty civil
works in 24 wards.

In June, the renewed civil works contracts were put on hold after the
BMC officials were not satisfied with the justifications presented by
31 shortlisted contractors for the low bids.

Despite cutting down the number of contractors from 110 to 31 to
curb malpractices in ward-level petty works, the contractors bid as much
as 60 per cent lower than the market rate, raising serious concerns
over the quality of work delivered.

An internal note circulated by chief accountant (finance) Ram
Dhas in April had accused the ward-level CWC contractors of siphoning
BMC money by getting work orders sanctioned for works that were not
required and doing shoddy work.