The Mangalore City Corporation on Thursday decided to cancel the tenders submitted for repair and maintenance of street lights related to 60 wards of the city following lapses found in the process.

At the meeting of the council on Thursday, chief whip Sudhir Shetty said nine lapses had been found by the Commissioner, K.N. Vijay Prakash.

Taking the officials to task for the delay in identifying the lapses in the process that started in April 2010, Mr. Shetty said: “These lapses should have been noted by the officials when the technical bid was opened and the process of re-tendering should have been started. The officials have gone ahead with the process even when I had pointed some of the lapses,” he said.

Lapses

Among the lapses include not publishing of the tender in the District Tender Bulletin as prescribed under the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement Act 1999. The officials have failed to upload the whole standard bid document in the e-tendering process.

They have not followed some technical formalities such as enclosing details of similar work done by the bidder in the last two years.

“The Directorate of Municipal Administration has pointed out the lapses,” Mr. Shetty said.

The Opposition party Councillor James D’Souza said the council needed an explanation about the lapses that had been committed. The council should be told about the reason why such faulty tenders were brought before it for approval. Councillor Mariyamma Thomas said delay in the execution of the work would cause many problems to people.

‘Lack of knowledge’

The Executive Engineer concerned said the lapses were because of lack of knowledge of the e-tendering process.

Mr. Vijay Prakash said there were legal lapses in the main tender and this should have been corrected by the Executive Engineer and the Chief Accounts Officer three months before April 2010.

Mr. Vijay Prakash said he had issued notices to the Executive Engineer and the Chief Accounts Officer seeking explanation for the nine lapses.

The reply of the two officials would be brought before the council. Commissioner Mr. Vijay Prakash said a few days ago, the State government notified Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) as the nodal agency to implement the Efficiency in Street Lighting Project in all municipal corporations, including Mangalore.

If the council approves, Mr. Vijay Prakash said Mangalore would get central energy management system and other facilities for saving power in street lights.