Nagpur: On one hand, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) rues lack of funds due to which many development projects are incomplete and on the other hand officials are violating guidelines and splitting the work estimate that would result in wasteful expenditure.
The Slum Department is in the eye of a storm after the officials allegedly divided the work and prepared separate estimates to enable floating of smaller tenders. The action however flies in the face of the internal order issued by Public Health Engineering Department, NMC, in which it had advised single tender for similar nature of work if they are to be carried out under one budget head.
The Nagpur Municipal Corporation Contractors’ Welfare Association, objecting to flouting of rules, approached Municipal Commissioner Radhakrishnan B and pointed out the contravention of the civic body’s own order by the Slum Department. C Vijay Nayudu, President, Association, cited the instances wherein in one Prabhag itself works relating to sewer lines and flooring were divided into various sub-works and tenders were called separately.
Explaining the strategy, Nayudu said as per rules, for tender with advertised value of Rs 10 lakh and above online tenders are compulsory. Herein any contractor can submit the bids and due to competition, the civic body also gets best of rates. However, the Slums Department recently divided the works in smaller components, Rs 3 lakh, Rs 5 lakh, to allegedly circumvent the online rule. With contractors submitting bids in person, there is enough scope for favouring the chosen few.
In fact, the Association cited information collated from lower rung personnel of Slum Department, wherein even issuance of tender copy was being allegedly controlled to ensure that there is no competition. Means, only the ‘selected’ contractor should submit the tender so that he or she can get the work easily. The Association in its letter to Municipal Commissioner and Administrator cited the circular of Superintendent, Public Health Engineering, NMC, dated May 12, 2022.
In the said circular the Assistant Commissioners and Executive Engineers were instructed to go for a single tender for similar work for which funds are to be utilised from one particular budget head. For instance for purchase of manhole covers and mesh and for repairs of sewer lines, single tender be called since the same are to be executed from a single budget head. However, in spite of this, the Slum Department executed development works in parallel to zone works, meaning they could be duplicate in nature since records are kept differently.
The aggrieved contractors further claimed that at present, work estimates are split into small works, and these may get overlapped since Zonal Executive Engineer was not consulted by Slum Department while issuing tenders in latter’s jurisdiction. To support their claim, the Association attached copies of tenders published in few local newspapers that clearly show how work estimates were split. In some instances, the split is done in the same Zone and same Prabhag under the same budget head. Not only that the Slum Department mentioned in the tender that since all the works are of urgent nature Municipal Commissioner’s approval can be taken.
Further, the Association said all these tenders were off-line and not flashed in tender portal nor put on notice board as is the procedure and were merely published in small circulation newspapers. Nayudu said the Commissioner should inquire as to who had suggested the works for which the Slum Department invited tenders. Normally Corporators would suggest these petty works and now that House no longer exists, it remains a mystery as to how the Slum Department could know about such small work in each Prabhag.
