MARGAO: Alleging rigging of tenders of major ongoing project to favour certain parties, Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai on Friday said that e-tendering process of the global tender for beach safety, life guards and beach patrol is being blatantly misused for fixing.
He told the media that the tender was supposed to be onsite on May 17, but for certain technical reasons, the tender document was inaccessible till May 20 morning when it was onsite till 10.30 am.
“After two hours at 12.30 pm, it suddenly cam onsite again, but by then it was drastically modified. This was done to obviously suit a particular party and the new specifications clearly point to the present contractor. It is laughable to see that a global tender is being floated and international experience is not being considered at all. Also, all parties with work experience of minimum four years are held on par with a party with 15 years experience. The marks for beach stretches patrolled are also unjustified as lengths of beach stretches cannot be substituted for years of experience,” he said.
He said the item “experience in providing training for life guards” has been changed to add marks for certificate of affiliation with organisation with a minimum of 50 members. “The vagueness of this specification, with no criterion for the organisation is possibly because the favoured party does not have any other qualification,” he said.
While demanding that the chief minister take immediate action to cancel the tender and re-tender the work after correcting the anomalies, Sardesai warned that he would be forced to approach the Lokayukta seeking action against the guilty.
He also alleged manipulation in the tender pertaining to the Lusofonia Games by floating the tender to suit a US based company in respect of the work on sports wooden flooring.
