Team Herald
PANJIM: The Tourism Department on Tuesday floated tender for providing comprehensive cleaning of beaches across the state including collection, segregation, transportation and disposal of garbage for a period of 5 years.
As of now Drishti was having the beach cleaning contract since December, 2016.
“The Tourism Director on behalf of Goa Government invites sealed item rate tenders in two bid format namely technical bid and financial bid on e-tendering mode only, from registered firms of repute/proprietary firms/partnership firms/limited company private or public/corporations who have experience of successfully completing similar works in beach cleaning,” the tender states.
It further states that the tender includes providing comprehensive cleaning of various beaches across the state including collection, segregation, transportation and disposal of garbage for a period of 5 years. The last date for application for the tender documents is October 10, 2018.
The State government had informed the High Court that fresh tender for beach cleaning will be floated by October 1. The government made this statement during hearing of a petition against giving beach cleaning contract to Drishti Lifesaving Pvt Ltd without any tender.
The High Court on Monday heard the petition filed by petitioner Joaquim Silveira opposing state government’s move of awarding beach cleaning contract to Drishti Lifesaving Pvt Ltd without floating any tender.
The petitioner had contended that the Goa government on December 17, 2016, without floating any tender, gave the beach cleaning contract to Drishti. First, the beach cleaning contract was given for 161 days for Rs 2.62 crore and was later renewed from time to time.
Soon after, the Drishti Lifesaving Pvt Ltd was brought on board as a temporary arrangement; the beach cleaning contracts with the two agencies were mired in controversy with allegations of a multi-crore scam. Cases were also filed before the Goa Lokayukta alleging fraud in the contract.
In its September 2017 order, the Lokayukta found the then tourism minister Dilip Parulekar guilty of “favouritism”, besides other irregularities, and recommended that the ACB reopen the case.
