The All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) has sought reply from PWD (Buildings) Minister Dasakhiatbha Lamare whether any action has been taken on the sub-contract of the construction of new Assembly building at Mawdiangdiang to two ‘disqualified bidders’ – Badri Rai & Company and Shiva Enterprise.
AITC national spokesperson Saket Gokhale in a letter to Lamare alleged that there was an “unholy nexus” between the NPP-led MDA government and contractors in the Assembly building project.
Gokhale said that in 2018, the tender for the construction of the new Legislative Assembly building was floated and on May 22, 2022, the dome of the same building collapsed. According to the bid documents, there were four bidders for the contract.
The AITC spokesperson said that after technical evaluation, Badri Rai & Company was declared as a disqualified bidder as the company did not fulfill the qualifying criteria of having successfully completed similar works during the last seven years of key government buildings with dome or similar architectural feature and the minimum criteria of bank solvency certificate/overdraft facilities/credit limit issued from the nationalised bank of at least 20 per cent of the estimated cost of the project put to tender.
He also said that Shiva Enterprise was disqualified as it allegedly failed to “submit hard copies of the technical bid.”
Gokhale said that Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd in an RTI reply to him stated that it has subcontracted construction work of the new Meghalaya Assembly building to both disqualified contractors – Badri Rai & Company and Shiva Enterprise.
“It baffles the mind that the Government of Meghalaya and PWD (Buildings) allowed Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd. to blatantly and brazenly subcontract the construction work to the two contractors who had been disqualified at the tender evaluation stage. This entirely defeats the purpose of a technical evaluation of a tender bid if disqualified contractors are eventually going to be subcontracted by the winning contractor,” Gokhale said.
He also asked if there was any audit or spot check carried out during the construction of the new Assembly building by the PWD (Buildings) to examine who were the actual contractors working on the construction of the building.
“After the report submitted by IIT-Guwahati on the collapse of the dome of the new Assembly building, has the PWD (Buildings) questioned Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd as to how it subcontracted work to the two disqualified contractors?” he further asked.
“This entire incident clearly reeks of not only shocking irregularities but an attempt to cheat the government and people of Meghalaya by illegal connivance between the contractors in clear violation of all rules. What’s even more shocking is that the Government of Meghalaya has not only failed to detect this unholy nexus but has also not taken any action or instituted any probe to find out what type of illegal collaboration was going on between Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd, Badri Rai & Company, and Shiva Enterprises and the reasons behind that. The collapse of the Assembly dome and the loss caused to the exchequer is a direct result of this illegal connivance,” he added.
