BJP State president B.S. Yeddyurappa’s allegation that Water Resources Minister M.B. Patil had received a kickback for awarding a tender based on forged documents, lost the sting within hours on Thursday as the Minister released documents to show the department had cancelled the tender for the same reason three days ago.
The firm that submitted forged documents — National Projects Construction Corporation Ltd. (NPCC) — is a government of India undertaking under the administrative control of Union Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation headed by Nitin Gadkari.
At a press conference here on Thursday, Mr. Yeddyurappa released documents that showed the ‘Work Done Certificate’ (WDC) submitted by the NPCC to bag a ₹157.94-crore contract was forged.
The WDC, is a document the bidder must submit from a similar project in the last five years, as a qualifier for the tender.
The NPCC had submitted the certificate from the Irrigation and Flood Control Department, government of Manipur, for executing a ₹124.59 crore canal work in Dolaithabi Division.
- Yeddyurappa alleges that M.B. Patil received a kickback for awarding a tender based on forged documents
- He says the ‘Work Done Certificate’ submitted by National Projects Construction Corporation to bag a ₹157.94-crore contract was forged
- Mr. Patil says the contract was cancelled and the firm barred from participating in any future tenders, on March 19, 2018 after they learnt that the certificate was forged
Another bidder for the tender, Amma Construction India Pvt. Ltd., had submitted a WDC from Tripura unit of Hindustan Steelworks Construction Ltd., a PSU. Both the certificates, however, carry the signature of one S.K. Thakur. Copies of the certificates are available with The Hindu.
“Both the Irrigation and Flood Control Department, government of Manipur, and the Tripura unit of Hindustan Steelworks Construction, have confirmed that they have not issued these certificates. How did the State government award tenders and work orders even without verifying the documents?” Mr. Yeddyurappa sought to know. “We have information that the Minister has taken a kickback of ₹25 crore. We demand that the minister be sacked and the case handed over to the CBI,” he said, and asked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah what was his share in the alleged kickback.
Later in the day, Mr. Patil released documents to show that the work order was issued to the NPCC on January 1, 2018 with a stipulation to submit all original documents. “When the NPCC failed to submit the original certificate, Visvesvaraya Jala Nigam Ltd. initiated an email correspondence with the chief engineer, Water Resources Department, Manipur, seeking a verification of the documents, on February 27, 2018. Manipur officials wrote back to us on March 9 confirming that the certificate was not issued by them,” he said. Following this, the contract was cancelled and the firm was barred from participating in any future tenders, on March 19, Mr. Patil said.
‘A joker’
Calling Mr. Yeddyurappa a “joker”, Mr. Patil said the former Chief Minister was unaware of the department’s functioning owing to poor guidance. “He would destroy the BJP’s prospects in the coming Assembly elections by making such baseless allegations,” the Minister said.
