Fake vendor’s tender manipulations expose chinks in BSNL armour

Hyderabad:The arrest of a fake vendor, who was awarded a number of works of BSNL’s electrical wing across districts in Telangana, after submitting forged documents of a registered firm, exposed the tendering scam in the major central public sector undertaking.

The issue highlights the alleged involvement of BSNL staff in awarding contracts and puts a question mark over the agency’s claims of having a transparent e-procurement and competitive tendering systems.

The accused vendor created forged partnership stamps of an already registered agency which has been executing works of BSNL for nearly a decade.

The accused Vanjari Sangameshwar created fake GST invoices of the original firm and submitted them to BSNL. He also gave declarations in the prescribed B and C proformas and attached all the required documents, albeit forged ones, and managed to get works in four districts.

The proprietor of the original firm, Srinivas, shocked to find penalties in his GST account, rushed to the BSNL office to check the transactions. When the officials concerned failed to cooperate, Srinivas took the RTI route to get all related details.

He was stunned beyond belief to find that the works were given on his firm’s name to some other person. He lodged a complaint with Chilkalguda police station. Sangameshwar was arrested six days back and sent to Chanchalguda jail. Meanwhile, BSNL employees, who were his accomplices in the scam, reportedly tried to cover up the case.

Srinivas suspects the role of BSNL staff as the agency had bypassed verification of licensed firms at every level, including CA certified IT returns for three years, GST files and the past work experience before awarding works. The ‘vendor’ had also fraudulently claimed security deposits for works that he had executed, said Srinivas.

Murali Krishna, BSNL’s chief engineer (electrical wing) did not respond to several phone calls and messages seeking his views on the issue.

Another official, Srimannarayana, said that he was in no way associated with the scam, stating that he was recently transferred after working for two years in some other place.

The scandal is raising concerns about transparency and fairness in BSNL’s tendering process. Ignoring the credentials of genuine bidders is resulting in huge losses to the government agency.