NEW DELHI: Lieutenant governor VK Saxena has given his approval for forwarding a complaint of alleged “gross irregularities and corruption” in the procurement of 1,000 low-floor buses by Delhi Transport Corporation and clubbing it with an ongoing probe in the matter. This follows a recommendation by chief secretary Naresh Kumar. Officials said the LG secretariat had received a complaint in June 2022 alleging anomalies in the appointment of the Delhi transport minister as chairman of a committee for tendering and procurement of buses in a pre-mediated manner and appointment of Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS) as the bid management consultant to allegedly facilitate irregularities in the bids for procurement of 1,000 low-floor BS-IV and BS-VI buses in July 2019 and purchase and annual maintenance contract of low-floor BS-VI buses in March 2020. The complaint, sources said, was forwarded to the chief secretary in July. There was no immediate reaction available from the AAP government. The said tender, sources confirmed, was cancelled later and the DTC has yet to procure 1,000 low-floor buses to augment its fleet. “The chief secretary in his report highlighted serious discrepancies in the tendering process, blatant deviation from the Central Vigilance Commission guidelines and general financial rules and deliberate co-option of DIMTS as a consultant to endorse the violations,” said an official. “The same discrepancies were clearly brought out in a report by a deputy commissioner of the DTC,” the official added. Sources said the chief secretary in his report has mentioned that while the DTC had floated a single tender to procure 1,000 BS-VI or the latest buses, it agreed after the pre-bid meeting for 400 BS-IV and 600 BS-VI buses. “While one company bid only for BS-VI buses, another company bid for both the variants but its rates were higher. Ideally, the bid should have been cancelled because there was only a single bidder for 1,000 buses, the bidding consultant (DIMTS) and DTC’s tender committee did not correctly evaluate the financial bids and declared the first company eligible to supply BS-VI buses,” said an official. “The DTC also negotiated with the second company for supplying BS-IV buses on the basis of the rates offered by the first company, which had never actually bid for that variant. This action of DTC was without any justification and the price negotiation with the second company was in violation of GFR and CVC guidelines,” the official said, adding that there were specific issues with the placement of seats in the buses and the bid of one company should have been cancelled for not fulfilling that condition. Sources said a three-member committee headed by retired IAS officer OP Aggrawal formed to look into the charges of irregularities and corruption in the procurement of buses in June 2021 had also indicted the AAP government for “procedural deviations in the entire tendering and procurement procedure”. “Criminal misconduct by public servants in this tender exercise will be ascertained by the investigating agency,” said an official.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/delhi-lg-vk-saxena-nod-for-probing-dtc-deal-on-buses-which-was-shelved/articleshow/94123999.cms