Anomalies in tender process? Bidders take complaint to MoRTH
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, April 11 2015 : Remarking that the way the State PWD conducted tender for repairing certain sections of Imphal-Moreh highway under periodic renewal programme was astonishing, some bidders have lodged a complaint with the Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) .

According to a well placed source, the same complaint has reached MoRTH Minister Nitin Gadkari.

Under periodic renewal programme, MoRTH gave two separate sanctions for repairing certain sections of Imphal-Moreh highway in 2014-15 .

The two separate sanctions were for two works, one of which pertains to repairing Tangjeng to Thoubal Kiyam and Khongjom Bazar to Kakching Lamkhai sections of the highway.

The second work is repairing Singjamei to Manipur University section of the same highway.

The amount sanctioned by the Government of India for the first work was over Rs five crore while it was a little less than Rs five crore for the second work.

A section of Imphal-Moreh highway

As per MoRTH guidelines, the State PWD may conduct tender for selection of contractors for contract works whose sanctioned amounts are less than Rs five crore.

In case the sanctioned amount crosses Rs five crore, tender should be held together with MoRTH's Guwahati Regional Officer.

Tenders for the two works were held last month.

As laid down in the guidelines, tender for the first work was held together with the Guwahati based Regional Officer and tender for the second work was done by the State PWD alone.

Four bidders viz; Md Nasir Shah, SN Pavei, LDS Construction Heirok and Ghaziabad based Wood Hills took part in the tender process of the two works.

Tender bids of LDS Construction and Wood Hills for the second work were rejected by the State PWD after technical evaluation.

Financial bids of the two remaining bidders were opened on March 27 and the highway repairing work was awarded to the selected agency.

As for the first work whose tender process was done together with MoRTH's Guwahati Regional Officer, the technical evaluation was still underway.

Both LDS Construction and Wood Hills have not been rejected and as such they are still bidding for the contract work.

After the technical evaluation is over, financial bids would be opened and the contract work would be awarded to the contractor who bid at the lowest rate.

Even though both LDS Construction and Wood Hills submitted exactly similar documents for the two tenders, they have been rejected during technical evaluation of the second work done by the State PWD alone while their bids are still kept alive for the first work whose technical evaluation is being done together with the Guwahati based Regional officer.

In another word, all four bidders are allowed to take part in the tender done by PWD and MoRTH while the number of bidders has been restricted to just two in the tender done by the State PWD alone.

Two possible reasons for rejection of the tender bids of LDS Construction and Wood Hills are over-writing on the bank guarantee and erroneous date of birth of the engineer, said the source.

But these two reasons cannot be a decisive factor for awarding or denying a contract work to a bidder.

The way their tender bids have been rejected by the PWD has baffled the spurned bidders and they have submitted a written complaint to the MoRTH Secretary.

Copies of the same complaint have also been submitted to MoRTH Minister Nitin Gadkari, Additional Chief Secretary (Works), MoRTH Chief Engineer, SE (NER) and Additional Chief Engineer-I, PWD Manipur.

Such complaints against a tender process for repairing highways in Manipur is the first of its kind, said the source.

However, when The Sangai Express enquired the Additional Chief Secretary (Works) if there was any such complaint, he maintained that he did not have knowledge of any such complaint.