SC allows Maha Congress plea for intervention in case related to Sewage Treatment Plants

Sewage water flows into the sea at Worli from Lovegrove pumping station. File pic/Ashish Raje

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Maharashtra Congress's intervention in the case related to Rs 26,000-crore Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) project of the BMC. The party, in its intervention application, has alleged non-transparency in the tender process. The SC on May 4 allowed the BMC to go ahead with the process of STP project and directed the corporation to award contracts before May 31. The civic body shortlisted contractors for after the apex court in February directed it to float and process tenders.

The STPs are planned at Worli, with capacity to treat 500 million litres per day (MLD) of sewage, Bandra (360 MLD), Malad (454 MLD), Ghatkopar (337 MLD), Dharavi (418 MLD), Bhandup (215 MLD) and Versova (180 MLD). "The court directed that if any party or bidder has any objection to the tendering process, such objections shall be raised before the Supreme Court only. So we went to the court," said Ravi Raja, leader of the Congress.

Congress legal cell head Tushar Kadam said, "We filed the intervention on three major points. The cost escalated to Rs 26,000 crore from Rs 10,000 crore without rational clarification from the BMC. Even the process of tendering is not transparent. The BMC submitted only the winning contractor's name in the reply to the SC and omitted names of second or third bidders. There may be a cartelisation in the process. Even the members of the peer review committee were former employees of the BMC and so the estimation of the project is biased. The contractors filed below estimated values from minus 3 per cent to minus 54 per cent."

Rs 26k cr
Cost of the project