Mumbai: Ahead of the Assembly elections, the Congress on Thursday alleged that officials in Mantralaya have been running a ‘tender management racket’ while sanctioning projects under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) in Navi Mumbai.
While asking the government to probe the matter, Congress general secretary Sachin Sawant also sought a clarification from the chief minister, who also holds the additional charge of the urban development department.
Claiming irregularities in the process of inviting applications for tenders, Mr Sawant alleged the tenders are designed in a manner to give the project to a select few companies, which are on good terms with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the state government.
“Chief Engineer of Navi Mumbai suggested that the magnitude shall be kept in the range of Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 1,600 crore which is the size of present on going scheme. Hence there will be total of 8 to 9 packages based on block cost approved by the Board,” the papers obtained under the Right to Information Act by the Congress party noted.
Mr Sawant claimed that this was the proposal given during the first meeting. However, he added that surprising changes were brought in during the second meeting.
"The committee felt that in order to attract agencies with bigger turnover and of repute, the packages proposed during the first meeting needs to be revised, It was deliberated that the entire mass housing scheme comprising of 89,771 numbers of tenements shall be split into four packages excluding 7500 number of tenement from Taloja project,” the documents further read.
Priya Ratambe, PRO of City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), however, issued a clarification. “CIDCO is implementing the housing project. Previously, we used to award these projects on the basis of nomination. To ensure quality construction and timely completion of the project, e-bids were invited for transparency. The bidding process was completed under supervision of a Technical Committee,” she said.
