Appointment of ‘tainted’ BVG had raised many eye brows
Nagpur: Upset over rejection of its tender for door-to-door garbage collection, a firm A2Z Infra Services has moved the Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court challenging NMC’s move to award tender to lowest bidder and ‘tainted’ BVG India Limited for the job. The development has put Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s plan to appoint two firms for garbage lifting job in doldrums.
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Sat 16 Nov. 2024
Following the petition by A2Z Infra Services, the High Court has issued notices to Municipal Commissioner Abhijit Bangar and BVG, directing them to reply before Thursday.
It may be recalled that NMC had invited tenders to appoint two firms for door-to-door collection of segregated solid waste and transporting it to Bhandewadi processing plant for 10-years.
Notably, Nagpur Today had published a report titled “NMC shows door to Kanak, set to appoint ‘tainted’ BVG for garbage collection.” The report stated that finally, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has shown the door to the controversial Kanak Resources Management Limited (KRML), engaged in door-to-door garbage collection since past 15 years. The civic body started fresh tendering process and after opening financial and technical bids, has shortlisted two firms – M/s AG Enviro and M/s BVG. However, the finalising of M/s BVG, currently working with Jaipur Municipal Corporation, has raised many eyebrows. It is learnt that dissatisfied with the working style of M/s BVG, Jaipur Municipal Corporation had slapped a fine of Rs 78 lakh on it. The firm had also applied for garbage collection in Ujjain civic body but was refused the contract. The firm had moved the court but got no relief. Further, the firm was assigned the responsibility of garbage collection in Warsi city in South India but failed to carry out the job.
The petitioner firm, through its lawyer A M Sudame, contended that the BVG India allegedly submitted misleading documents to secure the work order from the NMC. The documents pertained to cancellation of its tender by Jaipur Municipal Corporation for unsatisfactory work and misleading net worth. A2Z Infra Services, which also participated in the tender process, pointed out that the tender was issued on May 30 this year for two packages — Package 1 comprises Zone 1 to 5, while Package 2 is related to Zone 6 to 7.
In all seven firms participated in the tender process which included technical and financial bids. After completion of all processes, NMC appointed two firms — AG Enviro Infra Project Pvt Ltd and BVG India — for the purpose of door to door garbage collection.
According to petitioner firm, BVG submitted misleading information regarding its work experience. BVG has stated it possesses work experience for more than three years with the Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC), whereas in reality the civic body there cancelled its contract for unsatisfactory work. The firm further claimed that the BVG submitted work experience of six years from 2012 to 2017, which was pertaining to Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. Though the work was allotted to its sister concern BVG Kshitij India, the respondent is not even a shareholder of the firm. One of the conditions is that the bidder must have net worth of not less than Rs 30 crore, which the BVG does not possess.
“Both work experiences submitted by the BVG couldn’t be taken into consideration for determination its eligibility getting the contract for door to door garbage collection,” A2Z said in its petition. “The minimum eligibility criteria prescribed by tender document was obtaining 70/100 marks. The BVG secured 77 marks. If the misleading documents were removed, the firm will end up scoring 69 marks and thus become ineligible for the NMC’s work order,” the petitioner said, demanding BVG’s disqualification on all these grounds.
City generates 1250 metric tonnes garbage every day:
For the sake of information, Nagpur city generates 1,250 metric tonnes garbage every day. The NMC has divided the city into north and south zones. From Wadi to Variety Square-Zero Mile-LIC Square-Central Avenue up to Pardi, the city will be divided on both sides of the roads with five zones in north and similar numbers in south. The contractor of north zone will cater to a population of about 11.35 lakh and an area of 98 sq km while the other will cater to around 13.63 lakh population spread over 122.47sqkm area. For package one comprising zone one to five, BVG declared as L1 as it quoted Rs1,656 per metric tonne for lifting garbage.
For package two comprising zone six to 10, A G Enviro Project Pvt Ltd declared as L1 as it quoted Rs 1,800 per metric tonne.
