Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has unearthed large scale irregularities in the procurement procedures of Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB).
The Board has incurred an estimated loss of Rs 6.79 crore due to these irregularities between 2008 and 2011.
According to the CAG report, the BWSSB officials have fudged the documents and records to make multiple purchases against a single sanction order. These purchases were made across different divisions to buy more pumps than required to maintain the borewells handed over to the Board or those sunk by it, the report claimed. The details of the report are as follows:
The BWSSB prepared identical estimates for 28 packages and each package was estimated to cost `99 lakh and covered 75 tube wells. Each package was intended to procure 75 submersible pumps and 7,500 metres of galvanised iron pipes and to carry out works related to removing and repairing pumps, erection or re-erection of pumps and pipes etc.
The BWSSB issued the tenders without even identifying the borewells, their condition and type. Though it had taken over 3,454 borewells, the estimates covered only 2,100. Though it claimed that the works were awarded only to the borewells which were not in a good condition after getting a survey done through its quality assurance wing, it failed to give any valid reason to justify the preparation of identical estimates.
However, the Board subsequently undertook to supply the submersible pumps and GI pipes free of cost and asked the contractors to quote only the maintenance charges while issuing tenders.
To add to that, the board received single tenders for all the packages for which the tenders were invited and awarded 26 packages after negotiations. The packages were awarded at 9.9 percent more than the estimated value.
Therefore, the contract value of each package got escalated to Rs 108.80 lakh from the originally estimated cost of Rs 99 lakh.