Frivolous issues being raked up to get favors
KD NEWS SERVICE
SRINAGAR, Mar 19: Annoyed over the increasing level of transparency and accountability especially in the tendering processes initiated by the Srinagar Municipal Corporation, certain unhappy lobbies have started raking up concocted and baseless stories against few officers of the Corporation who are known for their integrity and determination towards their official obligations.
In response to a similar malicious attempt, SMC has strongly denied the allegations leveled against the FA/Chief Accounts Officer, Chief Sanitation Officer and the contract committee regarding the invitation of “Outsourcing of 300 personals of manpower” in SMC.
According to a KD News Desk, SMC has invited online tenders for outsourcing of 300 personals against which five positive responses where received and accordingly their technical bids were opened, two were disqualified during technical evaluation and subsequently financial bid of three qualified agencies were opened in which as per the comparative statement auto-generated by the portal declared M/S KUCHAY TRADERS as L1, Assim Communication as L2 and ALL India Institute of Local Self Government ( AIILSG) as L3.
M/S KUCHAY TRADERS as per terms and conditions of NIT failed to fulfill the basic eligiblity criteria as the agency could not explain before the contract committee the reason for “abnormally low bid “and the labour rights given as per article 14,16,38-39 contract labour (regulation & abolition) act of 1970 and minimum wages act 1948.
Similarly Assim Communications was not qualifying the basic criteria of labour law and the basic minimum wages act 1948.
However, AIILSG is already working in SMC since last three years under SBM(PMU) which is also a matter of investigation under what circumstances his contract is being extended from time to time when his contract has already expired in the year 2019, sources revealed to Kashmir Despatch.
Sources added that the rates given by this agency i,e AIILSG were exhoribant in nature and thereby was causing a huge loss to the state exchequer. Moreover, there was absolutely no letter of indent (LOI) issued by the contract committee to any bidder for negotiation nor any such move was made by the contract committee to share the contact on 50-50 basis between L1 & L3.
Furthermore, it is pertinent to mention here that there were no funds earmarked for this tender under 14 FC but SMC was trying to manage the funds from the administrative department which were yet to be released.
“There were no funds available for this tender with SMC. Subsequently, an official letter was issued by the administrative department(HAUDD) that “no LOI shall be issued with regard to this tender without the prior administrative approval of HUDD,” sources informed Kashmir Despatch.
A senior officer of the Corporation said that the sequence of events in the entire process of tendering got so much complex and it was unanimously decided by the contract committee under the chairmanship of Ex Commissioner SMC to cancel the tender as per one of the condition of NIT “the tender accepting authority reserves the right to accept or reject the tender without assigning any reason thereof” .
