Vijayawada: The West Godavari district Panchayati Raj administration has landed in controversy, following its decision to invite all the tender applicants for negotiations, even after L-1 emerged successful bidder. In fact, before this decision, the District Panchayati Office (DPO) had decided to go in for nominations to purchase Green Vehicles (Garbage collecting battery-powered rickshaws), to favour a local company.
However, before that decision could take a final shape, the District Collector intervened and ordered the DPO to go in for a tender process stating that he would not allow any anomalies in that aspect. A few smart personnel in DPO and a bureaucrat in the district administration further intervened and insisted that the DPO write a letter to all tender applicants, telling them to appear before the district technical committee, with the rickshaws. Irked by these developments, L 1, which had emerged the successful bidder, had approached the State Vigilance Commission for justice.
It may be recalled that funds from the 13th and 14th plan have reached the Gram Panchayats directly, about which the Panchayatiraj Commissionerate has no complete knowledge. Following this lacunae, the DPO staff and personnel started entering into unethical agreements with the people and lobbyists known to them, keeping in mind their ‘business interests’. With particular reference to the West Godavari district, Saidatta company from Nallajerla, which has supplied 1,200 computers to the Gram Panchayats of West Godavari district, and Entran Automobiles of Tadepali Gudem submitted their proposals for supplying Green Vehicles to the DPO and District Collectorate.
An interesting fact is that both the companies have shown the same vehicle, of Kuku motors, Jaipur. When the proposals were placed before the District Collector, he rejected the proposal and directed the DPO to call for tenders, in September. When the bids were opened on September 15, the Chairman of the technical committee had not conducted the negotiations to finalise the bid and postponed the process. He has singled out the five bidders, namely, Okay Play and DD Auto from New Delhi, Sree Tech from Hyderabad, Saidatta of Nallajerla and Entran from Tadepalligudem. Among them, the first three are the manufacturers and the rest are two of the agents of the manufacturers, from the same company.
The Chairman of the tender committee has sent a letter on the 14th to the bidders L-1. Interestingly, those who failed in the negotiations and left the auction in between were also invited to appear before the committee on October 20 with their vehicles. Irritated at this development, the successful bidder, L-1-DD Auto has approached the State Vigilance Commission.
Green vehicles for rural bodies:
The Panchayat Raj and Rural Development department have planned to buy Green Vehicles for all Gram Panchayats across the State, as part of Swachhandra. This decision has allowed the power brokers to play politics at district level. As part of this, the agents of manufacturers have started lobbying through their ‘understandings’ with the Government officers, in districts. While the IT and PR&RD Minister Mr Nara Lokesh has been pitching for corruption-free proceedings in his ministries, the few key employees and personnel of the PR&RD department have been entering into unethical agreements with agents of Green Vehicle manufacturing companies.
The twist in the entire episode is that the District Panchayat Office (DPO) of West Godavari district, has prepared the tender document, as per the guidelines issued by the Joint Collector, who is also the Chairman of the tender committee. In fact, this tender document contains the crux of the proposals submitted by Nallajerla and Tadepalligudem companies. Since Saidatta company of Nallajerla has supplied 1,200 computers to Gram Panchayts in WG district earlier, the same association has prompted the district officials to lean towards local agents.
However, the Collectorate officials were not satisfied with the specifications and model of these vehicles, when they were displayed before them some time back.
One of the bidders-M/S Okay Play also displayed its vehicles to the technical committee and the committee was satisfied with the quality and specifications of the vehicles. However, the Chairman of the tender committee hasn’t accepted the fibre body of the vehicles of Okay Play and DD Auto. The decision of the chairman of the committee was placed before the PR and RD commissioner, for verification. The successful bidder has stated that the tender committee has violated the CVC guidelines. It added that when L-1 is in the fray, the rest of the bidders are not supposed to be invited for further proceedings
