LIT tenders come under a cloud

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, June 7

Of late, e-tenders floated by the Ludhiana Improvement Trust on the Punjab Government portal for various development works to be executed in the city have come under a cloud. The officials of the engineering branch were charged with not following the norms, showing tearing hurry in the entire process with alleged intention of granting favours to certain politically connected contractors or construction agencies.

In a complaint to Local Bodies Minister Brahm Mohindra, with copies to the Principal Secretary, Local Government; the Director, Local Bodies, and the Chief Vigilance Officer of Local Government Department, the complainant said for the tender to execute the work of development of Leisure Valley near Budha Nullah in Haibowal (opened on June 1, 2020), the bidders were given just one working day to make their offers for a high value work.

“E-tender was uploaded on May 28 at 8.15 pm with the date of opening on June 1, 2020. There was only one working day, May 29, between issuing and opening of tender as May 30 and 31 were holidays on account of Saturday and Sunday,” said Nayyar.

He said in a similar manner, the tender to be opened on June 8 was uploaded on June 3 in the evening leaving just one day (June 4) for the bidders to do all their work. June 5 (Kabir Jayanti on Friday) as well as June 6 and 7 (Saturday and Sunday) were public holidays.

“Not only this, in the tenders invited by June 8, for certain works the estimates which ought to be a part of tender document have not been uploaded and for some other works for which bids have been invited by June 15, even the tender documents have not been uploaded till now,” said the complainant.

Nayyar said the officials of the engineering branch had made a mockery of the entire system of inviting bids even though the government had introduced e-tendering for bringing transparency.

Trust Engineer Buta Ram said date for the tender proposed to be opened on June 1 was extended by eight days and if there is insufficient time for the one to be opened on June 8, the date would be extended by another week so that the contractors could get at least seven days period to offer their bids.