This has been the story of the beach cleaning contract. Former chief minister Manohar Parrikar, who is now the Defence Minister, not once, but twice, wrote negative remarks on the beach cleaning file, including the words but did nothing to stop the illegalities.
Shockingly on one occasion, Parrikar even called the beach cleaning contract ‘messed up and very weak’. When the contract for 2014-15 which went up from Rs 1.85 crore to a record breaking Rs 14.70 crore, then Chief Minister’s word of caution and advice to hold and review the decision of the Tourism Department, under pressure from Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar to recommend that there should be two contractors for two districts (North and South).
Manohar Parrikar, in a noting on the main file on the beach cleaning contract, in possession of Herald, wrote on August 11, 2013, “The concept of two contractors one for south and one for north does not take into consideration danger of failure. Also we need to visit the safeguards on other issues afresh. We may therefore discuss the issue and recast the tender terms afresh,” Parrikar said in his noting on August 11, 2013, copies of the noting are in possession of Herald.
However, within days sources say the tender was floated without any changes. Sources in the Finance Department state that even though the tenders were floated the department delayed the concurrence over some issues but Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar continued to pressurise for clearance of the file.
Parulekar in his noting on July 7, 2014 even claimed that charters had stopped coming to Goa due to garbage issues.
“The Chief Minister may be aware that due to acute problem of garbage on Goan beaches the Tourism department has come under criticism from the media and tourists. As per record some charters from East Europe and Scandinavian countries have stopped coming to Goa on account of this problem of garbage on the Goan beaches,” he said.
Further, he stated, “The department had sent the beach cleaning file for administrative approval and concurrence of Finance department in February 2014. However, the file has still not been cleared. Hereby leading to delay in implementation of integrated beach cleaning system.”
“It is therefore necessary that the beach cleaning proposal be approved by honorable Chief Minister/Finance Minister at the earliest so that the system is in place from the forthcoming tourist season 2015-16 itself,” Parulekar wrote trying to impress Parrikar.
But Parrikar, again put a noting that the contract needs to be discussed threadbare.
“The proposal of Tourism department has bypassed all the major points raised during discussion. The contract is messed up and the tender documents have been weak on forcing execution. Considering the view of the minister (T) meeting to finalise the issue is fixed on 14/07/14,” said Parrikar’s noting on July 12, 2014.
But again, the file was cleared and the contract which was eight times more expensive and awarded to two beach cleaning contractors with the Chief Minister’s notings completely bypassed.
The issue here is that there was not a word from Mr Parrikar on file after Mr Parulekar actually ignored his two observations and directions and went ahead with this controversial beach cleaning contract.
