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".