CHENNAI: The Greater Chennai Corporation’s ‘injudicious analysis’ of tenders resulted in an undue benefit of Rs 1.41 crores to contractors in the six road improvement packages test-checked by the CAG, said the CAG report that was tabled in the assembly on Thursday.
The six packages in five zones of the city corporation were all completed within the agreed cost, on record. However, a scrutiny of the work revealed that the contractors of five packages did not carry out 13 items of work like raising, lowering of manholes etc which were agreed to be carried out at very low rates (65-99% less than the estimated rate).
In six packages, contractors only partially carried out work like providing and laying quarry rubbish etc and in two packages where works like interlocking paver blocks were agreed to be carried out at very high rates, the quantity executed exceeded the agreed quantities, the report stated.
“The contractors of all sampled packages had followed a similar pattern of quoting absurdly high/low rates and GCC allowed short execution and/or excess execution of items of works, in excess of the allowable 25% of the estimated quantity. This had resulted in allowing an undue advantage of Rs 1.41 crores to the contractors,” the report stated.
The report said that the Corporation Commissioner in November 2019 stated that short execution or excess execution of certain items of works were due to site conditions. The report, however, stated that the response indicated that the estimates were prepared without taking into account the site conditions.
The audit recommended that the provisions of the ‘Engineering Manual for Urban Local Bodies' on the issue of ‘absurdly low/high tendered rates’ should be applied by the GCC.