PANJIM: The Louis Berger Group is surely in the midst of a stormy ocean as Goa’s Watergate, threatens to drown quite a few political careers, it is no secret that consultants have made merry with our money, in both the Congress and the BJP era.
If the Nihon Suido-LBG combine won the Rs 1,031 crore JICA project for water supply and sewerage, the Louis Berger group on its own was awarded the consultancy for the RFP for the Rs 3000 crore Mopa project, getting Rs 70 crore for the former and Rs 19 crore for the latter. LBG was also given Rs 8 crore for the non-existent Vasco-Dabolim Sea Link project, which was shockingly a direct award, in effect largesse offered from the money meant for the people of Goa.
But, the big daddy of all Congress consultants was Lotus Environment Pune, which did 10 projects in tourism worth Rs 350 crore without tender nomination. According to sources in the department, all 10 projects were done without the full process of tender nominations. It received a fee of Rs 10 crore for its “consultancy”.
Another Congress pet was Milind Ramani Effective Architects who were consultants for the GMC morgue, Valpoi hospital, Valpoi beautification and 14 other projects without any competitive bidding. The total cost of these projects was Rs 260 crore, for which the consultant pocketed a neat Rs 6.74 crore. Incidentally, every project of theirs was sanctioned by the GSIDC.
The other two pets were Sashi Prabhu and Associates Mumbai who were consultants for the RFP for the Stadium for the Lusofonia Games, a Rs 180 crore project fetching them a consultancy fee of Rs 6.5 crore.
Meanwhile, Rajiv Khanna and Associates, Delhi bagged consultancy for the RFP of the Rs 100 crore project of the District Collectorate in Margao, again a GSIDC project. Its fee, a neat Rs 6 crore with the order given to them, without any competitive bidding.
Data collected by Herald by piecing information in public domain, and in government records show that out of seven sets of major consultants used by the Congress government, four of them got almost all their projects passed without tender nominations or competitive bidding.
When the BJP came to power in 2012, it was very clear who the BJP daddy was and this company has outstripped all others; leaving them with morsels, after they finished the feast. The big daddy, S N Bhobe and Associates, has secured consultancy for projects worth over Rs 2,800 crore, receiving consultancy fees of about Rs 20 crore.
However, Milind Ramani Effective Architects managed to keep itself in the big picture even during the BJP era but records reveal that their focus area is the backyard of the Ranes. During the current BJP rule, they were awarded the consultancy for the Sakhali complex and the Valpoi Municipal building, having handled the Valpoi hospital and city beautification project in the Congress tenure.
The BJP introduced some big ticket international consultants like LKS India for the Panjim and Mapusa master plan and KPMG, which handled the Goa Tourism master plan, and is also a consultant for the Mopa airport RFP.
Today, we leave our readers to sample this. Tomorrow, we shall highlight broad and very serious violations in the award of these consultancies, and a specific focus on two of the consultants, and how they were awarded work, with specific guidelines and norms not followed.
