Panel for cancellation of unipole tenders : The Tribune India

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Panel for cancellation of unipole tenders

Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 18

Overruling the approval of the Municipal Corporation House given in November last, a technical committee of the cash-starved MC has proposed to cancel the unipole tenders of three companies, which could have added about Rs 5 crore to its sagging revenue.

DEPUTY MAYOR SEEKS PROBE

We will not tolerate corruption and will go up to the Governor to complain. The MC is in such a state that it finds it hard to even pay salaries. Why a few officers do not want that the corporation generates more funds. After following four-six months’ procedure, why are they cancelling the whole tenders now?

—Jagtar Singh Jagga, Deputy Mayor, Chandigarh MC

Councillors Gurpreet Singh Dhillon and Maheshinder Singh Sidhu, who are the observers in the committee, were surprisingly not invited to the meeting, which was chaired by Sanjay Arora, Superintending Engineer (Building & Roads). Arora did not respond to the phone calls made for his comments.

Sidhu said: “We do not know about the meeting as we have not been invited.”

Commissioner KK Yadav will take a final call on the proposal of the committee. The proposal has been based on a complaint filed by Selvel Media firm, which itself owes crores to the MC.

However, Bishwadeep Dutta, director, Selvel Media, said: “We have not made any complaint, it was just a clarification which we sought. We were rejected in the unipole tenders reasoning default on payment. We just sought to know the definition of default.”

The unipole project has been hanging fire for about one and a half years.

According to sources, a complaint was made against one of the eligible firms with allegations that the company owed money to the South Delhi MC for “completed work”. However, in the South Delhi MC’s reply, it came out that the amount due was not for the “completed work”. It was mentioned in the reply that a recovery suit was filed for Rs 50.33 lakh against the firm for advertisement display beyond the three-year contract period. The firm has not been blacklisted and the matter is pending in the court.

However, as per the detailed notice invited tender (DNIT), a bidder shall submit that there are no pending dues to be paid for any “completed works.”

Officer on Special Duty Surender Kumar Sharma, however, said: “There was a complaint regarding legal issues by Selvel. The Commissioner will take a final call.”