The Indian Express 01.04.2013
Civic body to change tendering process
In a bid to curb malpractices like bid rigging, cartelisation and
predatory pricing, the Municipal Commissioner has planned to modify the
tender system in BMC.
Civic chief Sitaram Kunte has formed a committee that will
prepare the road map for an improved procurement procedure. The
committee, which will include senior civic officials, will prepare a
policy in consonance with the central draft Public Procurement Bill.
Following deficiencies in the public procurement system including
abnormal operations, extra items in the bills given by contractors
resulting in large scale variations, BMC will now change the system of
allotting tenders.
“These changes will include the tender conditions, minimum
requirements to bid for a certain tender, minimum deposits, variation in
contract size, bidding processes and rates of items,” an official said.
“The new policy will ensure more efficiency, fair and equitable
treatment to bidders, promotion of competition and prevention of corrupt
practices,” said Deputy Municipal Commissioner, Ramesh Pawar. “It will
be on the lines of the tools developed by the World Bank and Central
Vigilance Commission guidelines,” he added.
Several cases of irregularities, corruption and cartelisation in
contracts allotted by BMC have come to light in the past few years.
These include major road contracts worth over Rs 1,000 crore. Despite
the civic body’s claim to improve city roads by allotting contracts to
major multinationals, the road contracts have been bagged by the same
contractors each year.
Earlier, former chief auditor P Pisolkar alleged that the handing
out of CWC contracts had become ‘contractor driven’ rather than
‘need-based’. His letter dated January 20, 2011, to the then municipal
commissioner stated that “game of influence, pressure and favouritism is
resorted to by these contractors in all 24 wards”.