CHENNAI: The tender to implement and manage Command and Control Centre (CCC), onex of the core initiatives under the Chennai smart city project sparked a row after Larsen and Toubro alleged discrepancies by the Tender Evaluation Authority, stating that the Tamil Nadu Tender Transparency Act was not followed. After the letter of award was placed with Keltron, Larsen and Toubro has alleged that the TN tenders still show the status of financial evaluation and award of contract still in progress.
“The Tender Evaluation Authority did not follow the Tamil Nadu Tender Transparency Act by not mentioning the letter of award to Keltron to other bidders without declaring the technical scores of the qualified bidders,” Larsen and Toubro has alleged.
Interestingly, state government officials said that the website now has all details pertaining to bids and rejected the L & T allegations. “The tender was awarded as per the Tender Transparency Act. Larsen and Toubro has quoted more than 100 per cent of what Keltron has quoted and as such, they would not have got the tender,” said an official on condition of anonymity.
It is learnt that Larsen and Toubro has written letters to various departments in both Centre and state and sources say that they have yet to get any reply. Interestingly, while Larsen and Toubro has alleged that Keltron’s bid was incomplete and non-compliant, the Greater Chennai Corporation official rejected the allegations and said it did not hold ground.
Interestingly, the Centre plays a pivotal role in seamlessly synthesizing various departments’ data and dissemination of predictive and real-time analytics leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) and big data management.
Taking inspiration from the Rio de Janeiro’s Centro de Operacoes (Operational Control Centre), this has become a Central project in smart city plans throughout the country. Rio has elicited widespread private participation, especially from tech giant IBM to bring this system online, which is being emulated elsewhere too.
Some of the projects to be taken up include the integration of traffic management, disaster management and e-governance under one roof which will create greater efficiency. Other projects such as the smart signalling, intelligent transport system, disaster management, parking management system and city surveillance will be connected on the single-platform established in the Greater Chennai Corporation.
Additionally, the mapping of underground utilities will further assist the construction of a real-time three-dimensional map of various networks in the city.