The Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL) had recently embarked on a project to replace about 45 per cent of the existing energy meters with smart meters to reduce commercial loss and to improve billing efficiency and revenue collection.
The scope of work includes supply of smart meters and associated services for two lakh smart meters to be fitted in consumers’ homes across the State.
The notice inviting International Competitive Bidding (ICB) for the smart meter project was floated by Meghalaya Power Distribution Corporation Limited (MePDCL) in the Meghalaya e-Tender website on February 4, 2020. Citing various reasons, the last date for submission of bids was extended six times with the last one being July 3, 2020.
However, the tendering process for smart meters has raised several doubts and questions. Besides undue extensions of the last date for submission of bids, there was also alleged participation of doubtful firms just to qualify the predetermined party, etc. The tender has not been devised and evaluated in an objective, transparent and professional manner.
The bid document fee was Rs 25,000 and bid security was Rs 1.75 crore with a validity period of 180 days. The financial criteria for the bidders was that for a single entity the minimum Average Annual Turnover (AAT) for the last three years is Rs 230 crore and for a Joint Venture (JV), each partner must meet 25 per cent of the stipulated Average Annual Turnover. This means that the joint venture partner should have an AAT of at least Rs 57.50 crore.
The bid document had stipulated that the bidder must have successfully executed two or more electricity metering projects with cumulative value of Rs 125 crore or higher during the past five years from the scheduled bid opening date.
Further, the bid document also stipulates the technical experience that the bidder shall demonstrate that the offered types of smart meters must have been in production for at least three years from the date of floating of the notice inviting tender (NIT), and a minimum of five lakh units of digital energy meters must have been produced over the last five years from the date of floating the NIT which include at least one lakh of smart and prepaid meters of similar types that have been successfully installed and are in field operation for at least one year period from the date of floating of the NIT.
As per the bid document, the bidder should have a manufacturing facility to manufacture 3000 smart meters per day and an in-house testing facility for testing of smart prepaid meters.
Only four bidders had participated in the tender. The names of the bidders are Goodwill Enterprise (Jaipur), La-Monte Enterprise (Shillong) in joint venture with Toshniwal Electric Works Pvt Ltd (Mumbai), Gupta Power Infrastructure Ltd (Bhubaneswar) in joint venture with Zen Meter Solutions Pvt Ltd (Bengaluru), Satnam Global Infraprojects Ltd, Delhi in joint venture with JPM Industries Ltd (Gurgaon) and Inhemeter Co Ltd (Shenzhen,China).
In the first stage of evaluation, Goodwill Enterprise had not uploaded the bid security and bid document fees and its bid was therefore rejected and not considered for evaluation.
The bid of La-Monte Enterprise, Shillong in joint venture with Toshniwal Electric Works Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai has also not been considered for evaluation as the firm has not submitted its own credentials but had submitted the credentials of its joint venture partner which is not a partner in the bidding for the tender.
The bids submitted by the other two bidders are complete, and are considered for the second stage of evaluation. But as Gupta Power Infrastructure Ltd (JV) did not meet the qualifying requirements relating to the Average Annual Turnover, contractual experience and production capacity, its bid was declared as “Non-Responsive”.
Interestingly, the bid of Satnam Global Infraprojects Ltd with its joint venture partners was declared as “Responsive” in spite of the fact that the firm had uploaded the price bid in a wrong format. Reliable sources had indicated that an official of the MePDCL had superimposed the same in the correct format.
According to MePDCL officials, the bid offered by Satnam Global Infraprojects Ltd (JV) should have been summarily rejected as was done in all evaluation processes. Moreover, there was a lot of doubt and suspicions on the evaluation of Satnam Global Infraprojects Ltd bid especially since one of its joint venture partners is a Chinese company.
There were also startling revelations as to how a local bidder La-Monte Enterprise, Shillong had participated in the bidding when the firm did not meet the criteria as laid down in the bidding document. There were doubts about the participation of this firm since no entrepreneur would be so ridiculous as to shell out Rs 1.75 crore as bid security knowing full well that the tender shall be rejected.
Another revelation was how Gupta Power Infrastructure Ltd, a firm with an average annual turnover of over Rs 3000 crore, had participated in the tender knowing full well that the tender shall be rejected as it never executed any metering project work and also its joint venture partner did not meet the qualifying requirements.
Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL) employees have questioned the manner in which the tendering, bidding process was conducted and the bidder was selected. They felt that there is an urgent need to cancel the work orders for the smart meter project.
