CHENNAI: Chennai metro rail, on Saturday, rejected the charges levelled by BJP state president, K Annamalai, that undue advantage was provided to Alstom Transport during the procurement of rolling stock in 2010 for Phase I project of Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) by an addendum issued on the applicability of customs duty on the trains procured.
Annamalai, on Friday, had alleged Stalin took Rs 200 crore ahead of the 2011 elections in return for giving a private firm, Alstom, undue advantage in the CMRL contract.According to the release, the addendum on deemed exports was issued for projects funded by JICA to reduce the prices and save funds for the public procurement entity. But since the tenders had already been floated by CMRL before the notification was issued by union government, the tender conditions needed to be amended to confer the benefit to the project and bring down the costs.
Refuting allegations that addendums were issued after the financial bid, CMRL said both the addendums were issued a minimum of 10 days to submit the tender. “This made the bid fair by placing all bidders on an equal pedestal and incentivised the bidders to manufacture locally,” the release said.
The release also said Alstom Transport SA, France and Alstom Projects India Ltd was the L1 bidder as per the bid process and not the CAF Spain- Mistubishi Consortium as has been wrongly alleged.Due to the ‘Deemed Exports’ benefits notification by the the union government, CMRL was able to procure the rolling stock at Rs 8.57 crore per car. This has resulted in a savings of about Rs 250 crore to CMRL.
It was also alleged the selected bidder, Alstom, had faced penal action in various countries for bribing to obtain government projects, including CMRL, through shell companies. While it is true that the bidder had faced penal actions, linking them to the procurement in CMRL is utterly false and malicious, the release added.
In the US case, where Alstom agreed to pay $772 million to resolve foreign bribery allegations, the order of the US Department of Justice clearly mentions the bribery allegations were related to projects in Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Bahamas and Taiwan. No project in India was implicated in that order, the release said.Chennai metro rail said the allegations are totally false and factually incorrect, and the fail process followed resulted in CMRL saving hundreds of crores of rupees to the public exchequer.
Chennai Metro Rail Project is a project funded by the union and state governments and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Bids were invited for rolling stock (trains) by CMRL for procurement of 42 trains, each consisting of 4 cars (168 cars in total). Pre-qualification for the tender was on September 23, 2008 and seven companies applied for pre-qualification. Four bidders - Alstom Transport SA, France and Alstom Projects India Ltd; Bombardier Transportation Gmbh, Germany & Bombardier Transportation India; CAF Spain- Mistubishi Consortium and BEML-Hyundai Rotem Consortium - were prequalified.