TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Dean of the Goa Dental College Dr Ida de Noronha de Ataide, was ostensibly removed due to a policy of rotation of Deans introduced by the government. While the policy has not been made public by the government, on the ground that it’s an executive decision, her removal co-incided, with the decision on awarding a very lucrative Annual Maintenance Contract to Akshaya Dental Trading Co Ponda, (ADTC) which the Dean was resisting. The order to relieve her from her responsibility as Dean, came less than a week after she sent a report to the Under Secretary Health Sangeeta Porob, that signing the AMC with ADTC “is not in the best interest of the institution and is in contravention of the very basic purpose of signing an AMC.
Herald, on the basis of documents sourced for this story is putting down the sequence of events, without offering any comment, for readers to decide if her removal and her refusal to give the lucrative AMC to this supplier was connected.
ADTC Ponda, has been given the most favoured status as a supplier of almost all equipment to the Dental College cutting across all regimes. The AMC in question was incidentally not a part of any tender floated by the government but submitted on his own accord, according to Dr Ataide’s report to the Under Secretary Health dated 28/07/2014.
The sequence of events are as follows:
On July 3, 2014 Akshay Khandeparkar, the owner of ADTC, wrote to the Dean to execute an AMC for dental chairs (120 in total including 68 chairs bought in 2007/2008. The basic points in the letter were:
— Equipment supplied (incidentally by his company) are “in a miserable condition”, the rates quoted by them is as per normal schedule, as per the age of equipments
— Their AMC was pending and “not executed intentionally with ‘wasted’ (sic) interest”
Copies of this letter was marked to the CM, Health Minister and the Health Secretary
On 17.07.2014 the Dean received a letter dated 15.07 14 from the Under Secretary, on the instructions of the health secretary/health minister sating referring to the letter received from Akshaya Dental Trading Co Ponda, asking for the Dean’s comments “in order to take action”.
According to HoDs in GMC and senior specialists in the Dental, this constitutes ‘undue interest’ of the government in a specific AMC, initiated by the supplier and without any tender.
On July 28, the Dean responded to the letter of the under-secretary by submitting a report as follows. This turned out to be the last communication from the Dean to the government before her ouster.
— 68 dental chairs were bought from the supplier in two batches delivered on 4/12/2007 and 14/3/2008. Barely four months after the second delivery a complaint was received from HOD that many chairs were mal-functioning.
— ATDC submitted a quotation for spare parts and labour for Rs 1,85,290 (Rs 1.85 lakh). This was rejected by dean, because according to her, the supplier allowed the warranty period to lapse and then billed the college.
— Since students work and treatment of patients was getting hindered, quotations were asked from local parties and repairs were allotted to the lowest bidder at the cost of Rs 8.12 lakh, after there was no response to another local tender for repairs.
— After this process, on its own moved a proposal for the Non Comprehensive AMC by M/s ADTC was Rs 23.82 lakh, with terms heavily loaded in favour of the supplier. This was blocked by Dr Ida de Noronha de Ataide.
The Dean’s concluding submissions had the following points:
— A life of a chair is 10 years and some have completed 7-8 years.
— the terms and conditions of the ATDC quotation stated that the AMC would not include damage due to fire, transportation, short circuit, mishandling, human error, accidental damage or any other calamity. It also stated that their report shall be final and binding. This, according to the Dean left every avenue of damage out of the contract. Her final recommendation on July 28, 2014 was “The AMC completely binds this office to accept whatever the dealer decided, which is unacceptable as per the previous experience of M/s ATDC dealing with the subject matter”. She asked the government to accord approval to float an e-tender for repairs.
By August 1, the final decision to relieve her of her duties was drafted and the letter issued which Dr Ataide received on August 4. When Herald contacted her for her comments she said “I’m a government doctor who has served the government and the people. I have no comments to offer”.
