BENGALURU : The spat between the two IPS officers over the tender process in the Rs 619 crore Bengaluru Safe City Project seems to be getting uglier. On Sunday, IPS officer Hemant Nimbalkar claimed that the tender process was transparent, amid allegations of irregularities.
Hitting back at Nimbalkar again, Home Secretary D Roopa alleged that he had given wrong facts, misleading the government, the media and public. Nimbalkar, Bengaluru Additional Commissioner of Police (Administration) and also chairman of the tender inviting committee, said he had written to the Chief Secretary on December 7 informing him that someone had impersonated the Home Secretary and tried to access classified information pertaining to the preparation of RFP (Request For Proposal) and details of tenders.
Higher-ups in govt being misguided: Roopa
“ON certain forums, it has been alleged that Bharat Electronics Limited was wrongly disqualified, but it is far from the truth as the company never participated in the tender process,” Nimbalkar said. He said Call-1 was cancelled on January 16 as all the three participants did not meet the conditions for pre-qualification requirements of the tender.
After verifying the pre-qualification and technical requirements, the tender scrutiny committee on June 20 accepted three bids from M/s Larsen & Toubro, Matrix Security and Surveillance Private Ltd and Bharat Electronics Ltd. Call-II was cancelled because the state government had issued an order to ban all products from China, Nimbalkar said.
“The Karnataka government has launched an independent inquiry into the unauthorised means that were used to approach the Project Management Consultant for the Safe City Project,” he said. Call-III of the tender is under way in a transparent manner, he claimed. Meanwhile, Roopa told TNIE, “Even in the latest tender (Call- III), which is presently online in the eProcurement portal, gross irregularities exist.” She said, “As per the finance department’s standard bid document KW4 for such tenders, the minimum annual turnover of the bidder must be two times the value of tender.
Here, tender value is Rs 620 crore but minimum turnover fixed is Rs 250 crore. Even with the latest amendment, the minimum requirement is 100% of the tender value or amount payable in first year. Even that is about Rs 500 crore. So there is a clear violation of the finance department’s direction.” “BEL is the Navratna that has expertise in this work as floated in the tender ( installation of CCTV) . It has repeatedly complained that this is done to favour individual particular vendors.
It has brought out how the vendor that was favoured was giving Chinese cameras that were unsafe for security,” she claimed. As per Rule 3 Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement Rules, she said, “This is a ‘supply of goods and services’ tender, because it is about CCTV procurement and installation, and not a ‘consultancy services’ tender.” As per Rule 28H of KTPP Rules, Quality cum Cost Based Selection method can be used only for consultancy services.
It is not permitted to be used for this tender. Hence, the KTPP Rules were violated by the tender, she said. “Nimbalkar has been misguiding the higher-ups in the government,” Roopa alleged. The Bengaluru Safe City Project, under the Nirbhaya scheme, envisages prevention of crimes against women in public places.