State warns PMC against receiving any inflated bids

State warns PMC against receiving any inflated bids

Pune: The State government has warned Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to ensure that no inflated bids for the 24X7 water supply scheme are submitted. It may be recalled that the civic body decided to start the process of re-tendering for the project as it was observed that 26 per cent inflated bids were submitted in August. Against this backdrop, the government asked civic officials to ensure that this incident should not be repeated during re-tendering.  

The  State government had given a nod for issuing municipal bonds of Rs 2,264 crore to execute 24x7 water supply scheme. But it also instructed that the sole responsibility of repayment will be on the civic body only. Meanwhile, the consultant has been appointed for this project to prepare draft estimate again for the project worth Rs 2,650 crore, which is going to be submitted to estimates committee of the civic body next week.

The consultant has submitted this estimate to Municipal Commissioner Kunal Kumar. City Engineer of PMC Prashant Waghmare and Chief of Water Supply Department of PMC VG Kulkarni are going to present this estimate to estimates committee soon. Last time, the estimate for the project was Rs 2,818 crore.

This estimation did not include expenditure of cable duct and maintenance cost. Including this expenditure, bids for the project were received with 26 per cent inflated cost. Due to inflated cost, the PMC  had to face severe criticism, that leads to the decision of re-tendering of the project.  

The PMC is executing 24x7 water supply scheme which costs around Rs 3,300 crore as per earlier estimation. The General Body of the PMC has already given the nod for issuing municipal bonds which will help get money from the open market instead of approaching financial institutions.

After the General Body’s nod, the proposal was submitted to the State government for approval. Within a week, the government approved the proposal. But the project was delayed due to PMC’s decision of re-tendering of the project.

Standing Committee Chairman Murlidhar Mohol said the bids received during NCP rule were inflated therefore State government has asked the civic body to ensure that bids should not be inflated.

Speaking on this, Opposition leader Chetan Tupe said, “It indicates that government doesn’t trust the functioning of the PMC and therefore it had to intervene to ensure there should not be inflated bids for the project.”

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