Rs 100-crore e-tendering scam: BMC engineers manipulated system

The BMCrsquos ambitious plan to reduce corruption and bring in more transparency by introducing the etendering system seems to have backfired with vigilance officers detecting a R100crore scam in the processWhile an inquiry has been initiated against 21 engineers from 9 wards midday has found that an ingenious modus operandi was being used by the accused to favour certain people costing the BMC and the taxpayers crores of rupeesEtendering was introduced two years ago to replace civil works contracts CWCs for petty works at the ward level and the involvement of its own engineers in the alleged scam has made the civic body rethink the system A highly placed official in the BMC said the engineers misused the SAP online bidding system for their own gain and caused losses to the civic bodyldquoEtendering works pertain to small contracts Rs 3 lakh Rs 7 lakh for minor road drain footpath repairs in wards The engineers formed a nexus with some contractors and gave them the time when the SAP system was lsquoopenrsquo and could be used for filing their bids Most of the time this was done at midnight or early in the morning so that other bidders would not find outrdquo said the officialldquoAfter their favoured contractors finished bidding the engineers made sure the system did not work for other bidders This began barely a month after the etendering system was introducedrdquo he addedLossesThe engineersrsquo favoured contractors bid 525 per cent below the cost set for the work However there were other contractors who wanted to bid 4050 per cent below the cost but could not do so because of the nexus The BMC ended up paying more for the works because of this said the officialFrom 2012 to 2014 work worth Rs 600 crore has been done under etendering and officers from the BMCrsquos Test Audit and Vigilance Officer TAVO department had found lapses in nine wards which are RSouth Kandivli RCentral Borivli RNorth Dahisar PSouth Goregaon PNorth Malad KEast Andheri East KWest Vile Parle Andheri HEast Bandra and S Bhandup 21 engineers are accused in the scam and Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte had ordered an inquiry in the matterOfficial speakOpposition leader and Congress Corporater Devendra Ambekar said ldquoWe want this whole system to be scrapped The nexus between engineers and contractors resulted in a loss of around R100 crore We will raise this issue in the BMCrsquos general body meeting What is the use of having etendering in place of CWC if the same thing is happeningrdquoAdditional Municipal Commissioner Rajeev Jalota said ldquoI had received a complaint on this matter from someone It was a handwritten letter which I then forwarded to the TAVO department and asked them to report in 1015 days which they didThey have done a good job and now we have started working on the system already We realised there is a need to have thorough IT professionals who can get us the details of this case and how the engineers manipulated thingsrdquoldquoThere were about 21 engineers against whom the harshest of action will be taken But a detailed inquiry is still going on We do not want such things to be repeated and hence the action will speak for itself As of now we have found the losses to be around R2530 crorerdquo he added Inputs by Chetana Yerunkar