Cancel Water Grid tenders, demand Cong leaders

Hyderabad: The Telangana Congress, which has been lying low since the end of budget session, has begun to mount its attack. Alleging large-scale irregularities in allocation of tenders for Water Grid project, the flagship programme of the government, the Congress party demanded cancellation of the tenders.

Substantiating the claims at a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan on Saturday, TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy distributed a set of documents to stress upon the point that there were irregularities in the tender process for the scheme. All the standard norms which were followed during the Congress rule have been flouted in awarding works to the private contractors, he said.

Stating that tenders were called for 14 packages for various water sources, the TPCC chief wondered why they were cancelled with two days and the packages were brought down to five. When it came to the finalisation of tenders, works have been divided into six packages for which the companies filed tenders. The Congress leader found a flaw that water sources of all these packages were clubbed together although they were located in different districts just to make their ‘favourite’ companies eligible for the bidding.

Uttam Kumar wondered why the tenders were called as ‘short notice’ tenders with just a week’s time given for submission. Generally, contractors are given two weeks to carry out detailed survey of work sites before submitting the bids. In this case, the Rural Water Supply (RWS), the official implementing agency of the scheme, done injustice to other prospective bidders by allowing only a few of ‘favourite’ companies become eligible for such high-value tenders.

Referring to a report of 2010 of the Central Government, Uttam Kumar Reddy said more than 70 per cent households already have piped water supply and the Centre had proposed to complete the remaining works with a grant of just Rs 10,000 crore. However, the TRS Government created a hype with regard to Water Grid and wants to waste thousands of crore of public money. He wanted the government to place the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of Water Grid in public domain.

He also alleged that the tenders of Water Grid were manipulated so as to benefit a syndicate of contractors. The rules were twisted in a way that no company from Telangana became eligible to participate in tender process, he said. Speaking about the project, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir alleged that the project estimation from Rs 25,000 crore to Rs 40,000 crore was made on mere speculation. Even when we dig a borewell, an engineer suggests the size of the pipeline and motor only after getting water.

However, the government wants to go ahead with the project without even defining the source of water. CLP leader Jana Reddy too asked the TRS Government to execute the project in a transparent manner. He said that the government should take serious note of the irregularities and ensure that not a single rupee from public exchequer was misused. Congress working president Bhatti Vikramarka said that the prices quoted by different companies clearly indicated that they were operating like a syndicate. He demanded that the State Government cancel all the tenders and call for fresh tenders for the Water Grid project.