Mumbai: The Congress on Tuesday said the mega BMC tenders are rooted in corruption and rigged for a select few. Levelling a serious accusation, Mumbai Congress President Varsha Gaikwad charged that one of the contractor beneficiaries paid Rs259 crore to the BJP through electoral bonds.
The party pledged to hold a march towards the BMC headquarters against its tender to collect waste from the slums, alleging that it will leave 15,000 volunteers jobless and benefit the BJP friends.
Press Conference Expose Alleged Corrupt Practices In Tender Issuance
On Tuesday, Gaikwad and former corporators Sheetal Mhatre, Asif Zakaria and Ashraf Azmi held a presser to 'expose' the alleged corrupt practices adopted in the issuance of tenders floated in the last two months.
Substantiating their allegations, they said that the tender worth Rs1,362 crore and Rs7,000 crore were given for road works. However, several of these roads like the IC Colony area of Borivali and Mhatre Wadi in Dahisar were already included in last year's contract.
“Some of the works are already ongoing with the funds from last year’s tender and they are still included in the mega tenders. They have used different names of the same roads in different tenders. The local MLAs have put up hoardings saying the work is carried out from their fund, the BMC claims that they have done the work and as per the mega tenders, the work will be done under them,” pointed out Mhatre.
Azmi Allege Violation Of Standard Beat Document
In a similar vein, Azmi alleged that contracts are being prepared in such a way that any one particular company can get it, violating the standard beat document.
“The standard beat document makes it necessary to offer tender over Rs100 crores to joint ventures. However, they changed the criteria to benefit a single contractor for the mega tender. If joint ventures would have been chosen, the cost would have come down by 25%,” said Azmi. “This is people’s money which they pay through taxes. It is not a party fund that could be used in any manner,” said Gaikwad.
