Palampur MC tender for benches stirs row

Tribune News Service

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, August 7

Tenders issued by the Palampur Municipal Corporation have invited controversy as many manufacturers of cast iron benches in a complaint to the Chief Secretary have alleged that their bids have been rejected illegally.

The Palampur MC last month issued tenders worth about Rs 3.80 crore on the Government E-Market (GEM) portal for the procurement of 2,000 benches for the city.

Allegations against MC

• Most of the firms, whose bids had been rejected, were manufacturers whereas the bids of traders had been approved.
• As per the conditions of tenders, the manufacturers registered under the MSME scheme are exempt from submitting earnest money
• The MC has rejected the bid on the basis that the bidders have not submitted the earnest money with tender

Arun Kumar, owner of HT Enterprises, in a complaint to the Chief Secretary, alleged that 23 persons had submitted bids for supplying benches. Of these bids, the Palampur MC has rejected the bids of 19 people and just four are left in the fray.

He alleged that most of the firms, whose bids had been rejected, were manufacturers whereas the bids of traders had been approved. Arun Kumar alleged that as per the conditions of tenders floated on GEM, the manufacturers registered under the Medium Small and Micro Enterprises (MSME) scheme were exempt from submitting earnest money. “The portal does not pick the earnest money documents if submitted by the bidder online. Still the Palampur MC has rejected my bid on the basis that I have not submitted the earnest money with tender,” he alleged.

“Since the demand for earnest money was not made in the tender document, how could we submit that,” Arun Kumar said. He alleged that tenders of 19 firms, including manufacturers, had been cancelled to favour a few traders.

Commissioner of the Palampur MC Vikram Mahajan said since it was a big tender involving an investment of Rs 3.80 crore, earnest money was mandatory to keep some security from the lowest bidder which could be forfeited in case he failed to fulfil the order.

When asked about the allegation that the earnest money could not be fulfilled in online tenders on GEM, he said the bidders were given time to physically deposit the earnest money in the MC office and many of the bidders had deposited it.

When asked why papers of 19 out of the 23 bidders had been cancelled, he said bids had been cancelled for various reasons such as incomplete documents or non-deposition of earnest money.

Congress MLA from Palampur Ashish Butail, who is also a member of Palampur MC, said he had taken up the matter with the Commissioner. “I have asked him not to reject the bids and revisit the issue. At the meeting of the MC, I had also questioned the requirement of 2,000 benches in 15 wards of the local body. I had advised the authorities to order only 1,000 benches,” he said.

A reply has been sought from DC Nipun Jindal regarding the complaint.

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