Team Herald
PANJIM: United Goans Foundation’s latest expose on the direct and unlawful awarding of interior works consultancy was met with stony silence. A closer perusal of the documents obtained under Right to Information from Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation reveals that its then Chairman & State Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, then Vice Chairman Pramod Sawant, then Joint Secretary to CM Parrikar Siddharth Kuncalienkar and then Managing Director Sanjit Rodrigues awarded the interiors consultancy and works contract to undeserving parties in 2013.
Herald in its two-part investigation reveals how CM and GSIDC’s longest-serving MD together gave undue favours to grant GSIDC interior consultancy and thereafter works contract.
The Interior works Consultancy Tender Scam
On 24/12/2013 a Letter of Invitation was sent by GSIDC to 15 consultants for participating in the tender for “Consultancy Services for the work of Interior Works for Departments/ Corporations of office premises at EDC, Patto Plaza, Panjim. The bid documents were to be issued from 30/12/13 to 14/01/14 and the last date of bid submission and the opening was 16/01/14.
On 30/12/14, M/s M S Suctancar sent a letter to GSIDC MD Sanjit Rodrigues mentioning their interest in bidding for the tender. This was followed by another letter on 10/01/14 from Ameet Sukthankar who represents M S Suctancar stating that the minimum percentage of fees of the cost of work stated as 4% should ideally be 10% as per COA (Council of Architecture) norms. Interestingly, as per the COA, the minimum percentage of fees was pegged at 7.5%.
Out of the 15 consultants, only three bidders purchased the said bid docs, namely M/s M S Suctancar, M/s Saolapurkar and Associates and M/s Shiva Consultancy Pvt Ltd, of which only 2 bidders submitted bids. M S Suctancar did not participate. Both M/s Saolapurkar and Associates and M/s Shiva Consultancy had quoted a figure of 4% as their financial bid.
Subsequently, Sudesh Sangodkar (Dy Manager Engg – GSIDC) moved a note stating that the response was poor and 2 bidders submitted the bids and of the two Saolapurkar Associates have about 5 works in hand and their work is “Not Satisfactory” whereas Shiva Consultancy is new and has not executed works with GSIDC and hence due to the above it was proposed to invite consultant from the open market via Expression of Interest.
This was a major deviation from prescribed procedure since the exercise of evaluating the bidders should have been carried out at the technical evaluation before the opening of the financial bid and it is alleged that the same was done to understand the bid of the participants.
The next day on 23/01/2014, GSIDC MD Sanjit Rodrigues concurs with Sudesh Sangodkar and mentions that fees as per Indian Council of Architecture which are mentioned at 7.5% should be considered and sends to chairman for approval. The chairman directs the same be placed before the board and accordingly the same is placed before the 126th Board meeting held on 06/02/2014.
Curiously when the Govt had received a bid of 4% what was the need to incur the cost of an additional 3.5%?
The tender was floated again in February with certain new conditions. In response 3 bidders purchased the tender documents namely Ameet Sukthankar, Intrinsic Classics and Fortress Infrastructure Advisory Services. However, again only 2 bidders – Ameet and Fortress submitted the bids. The technical bids of the 2 bidders were opened on 18/02/2014 as they qualified but this time the financial bids were not opened.
Due to the poor response, GSIDC proposed to relax some technical criteria and republish the tender. The same was approved and it was decided to open the financial bids of Ameet and Fortress along with the new bidders later. Hence, another short tender notice was issued on 19/02/2014. Two additional bidders, Nilesh Salkar and Associates and Intrinsic Classics, entered the fray.
Three bidders had the lowest financial bid. Ameet Sukthankar, Nilesh Salkar and Associates and Intrinsic Classics had all bid the same figure of 7.5%. Sudesh Sangodkar, GSIDC Deputy Manager had placed a note in the file suggesting that the GSIDC board had decided that in case of the same percentage, the work can be awarded by draw of lots or any other transparent method. GSIDC MD Sanjit Rodrigues, instead of implementing the decision of the GSIDC Board allowed the GSIDC Chairman Manohar Parrikar to unilaterally and arbitrarily decide whom to award the tender. Manohar Parrikar, without giving any explanation or justification, stated that “we may go for Sr No 2” thereby awarding the tender to Ameet Sukthankar.
