SHILLONG: Alleged anomalies in allotment of tenders for construction of various buildings on NEHU-Shillong campus have come to the fore due to the lower limit in accepting tenders.
Documents reveal that while the building subcommittee of NEHU, which met in 2014, agreed that the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) does not prescribe any lower limit for tender acceptance rates, the same committee decided that the lowest tender rate up to 10 per cent below the estimated cost is workable.
A special grant was received by the university from the Centre and the Building Committee approved the estimates worth more than Rs 8 crore and the tenders for various works were invited.
The reflected Notice Inviting Tender (NIT) amount includes premium ranging from 19 per cent to 50 per cent. But the condition of accepting the tenders up to 10 per cent below the estimated cost still existed.
Interestingly, all the bids are 10 per cent below the estimated costs reflected in the NITs. Since the estimated costs are already loaded with a premium of 19 per cent to 50 per cent, the bidders were quite comfortable even quoting 10 per cent below the estimated costs.
According to documents, there is an example of gross abuse of discretion in the award of work for renovation of Sensiar Hostel Block on the permanent campus of NEHU.
There were two bidders and both of them have quoted for 10 per cent below the estimated cost.
The tender of BD Marbaniang has been rejected and not considered for awarding the work for having not submitted the performance certificate in the prescribed format of the university.
After scrutiny, it was known that the performance certificate did not lack any material that could have disqualified him. However, his competitor B Kharlukhi was awarded the work.
The essence of performance is missing in the certificate of Kharlukhi, especially quality of work and comments on the capability of the contractor are not shown but his tender was found to be valid.
Wrong dates
Curiously, at serial number 5 of the performance certificate of Kharlukhi, the stipulated date of completion was shown as December 18, 2017, but the date of commencement of the work is January 17, 2018, which is after the stipulated date of completion.
The NEHU did not find any fault in the performance certificate and awarded the work to Kharlukhi denying the work to Marbaniang, who is much qualified than Kharlukhi as per the performance certificate.
Another work related to repair and painting of the Department of Botany at permanent campus, NEHU, was awarded to Womwara Laloo who has performance grading as ‘satisfactory’ ignoring two other participants who have grading of ‘very good’ by none other than the university.
The analysis of these two examples reveals that no actual evaluation of the bidders was done but there were some other considerations, which facilitated the award of work to the contractors.
Another irony is that all the 25 tenders received are 10% below the estimated costs, leaving no fair competition.
Sources said that the evaluation committee did not apply its mind on this aspect and allowed corruption to take place or may be the evaluation committee itself is hand in glove with the contractors.
The University, while replying to an RTI query, has denied having any approval from the Centre regarding fixing of lower limits of the tenders.
This newspaper had in August 2018 reported about the work being started even before the tenders were opened revealing how the award of works can be manipulated.
Questions are raised as to how the NEHU Executive Engineer (EE) could allow the contractor to carry out work before opening the tenders.
Sources pointed that the EE was sure that every contractor will quote 10% below the estimate amount and he will select the contractor to whom he has already told to
go ahead with the work.
The work was started in August 2018 but the award of the work was in September, 2018 indicating that that the contractors are selected even before the tenders are opened.