The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Contracts for projects: TDP steps up offensive

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 03, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Contracts for projects: TDP steps up offensive

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, NOV. 2. The Telugu Desam Party on Tuesday posed 13 questions and asked the Chief Minister and the Irrigation Minister to respond with regard to the award of contracts for irrigation projects. The TDP feels that there was no proper response to its earlier letter of October 27 highlighting "irregularities" in the contracts.

Addressing a press conference, TDP leaders M. V. Mysoora Reddy, K. Srihari and S. Maruthi asserted that there was large-scale corruption and siphoning off of public funds in awarding 28 packages to nine companies, some of them known to be ineligible and others that were blacklisted. The Government was violating the established norms, boosting estimates and encouraging contractors to form rings.

Issue warning

Claiming to have documentary evidence of the irregularities, they said they would expose the Government if it failed to respond. Though the Irrigation Minister, P. Lakshmaiah, had offered to show all the records, they would not go to him till they received proper official communication inviting them, they said.

Through the questionnaire, they raised doubts over virtually every aspect of the contract. They wanted to know why the Engineering Procurement and Contracting (EPC) system was adopted for canals that needed no technical speciality. Second, was it not true that the pre-qualification policy was followed to enable contracting companies to form a syndicate? Thirdly, was it not a fact that by selecting only nine companies for 28 tender packages, the Government had provided an opportunity to form a syndicate?

In the second phase of pre-qualification, was it not true that 20 of the 46 contractors filed fake papers? Was it not a fact that there was pressure from the Chief Minister's Office to recognise them as eligible?

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