Deonar waste-to-energy plant: Why no re-tendering or price negotiation?

A waste-to-energy plant will be set up at the Deonar dumping ground. File pic

It seems the BJP has finally woken up to the fact that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) standing committee has decided to hand over the contract of setting up a waste-to-energy plant at Deonar dumping ground to the second lowest bidder - Suez project. Objecting to the move, the party has written a letter to municipal commissioner Pravin Pardeshi. This comes two days after the decision was taken at the standing committee meeting, where some BJP corporators were present. They had not opposed the decision then.

The standing committee had scrapped the name of the lowest bidder - M/s Chennai MSW company - alleging that the civic body had not followed a proper tendering process. This company had projected a cost of '1,020 crore while Suez project had quoted '1,291 crore. After discussing the matter for over an hour, standing committee chairman Yashwant Jadhav ordered to award the contract to the second-lowest bidder with support from corporators across party lines. While some of the BJP corporators had left before the discussion, some of them who were present did not oppose it.

BJP corporators under the leadership of party president (Mumbai unit), Mangalprabhat Lodha, met Pardeshi on Wednesday and handed over a letter to him. Group leader and corporator, Manoj Kotak (also an MP from northeast Mumbai), had signed the letter. According to the letter, the party questioned as to why the standing committee had not ordered for re-tendering or negotiated the price with the bidder. Speaking at a press conference, spokesperson of the party, Bhalchandra Shirsat, said that the Shiv Sena with the help of Congress awarded the contract to the second-lowest bidder without any negotiation. He further said that they were looting the civic body's money and that a public-private-partnership could have saved '1,200 crore.

Rubbishing the claim, standing committee chairman Jadhav said the proposal was pending for more than three meetings and BJP had enough time to raise their concern. "Even all the corporators, including those from BJP, discussed it and then passed it unanimously. It means the BJP doesn't trust its corporators," he added.

Rs 1,020 cr
Cost quoted by the lowest bidder

Rs 1,291 cr
Cost quoted by the second-lowest bidder

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