NMC plan for garbage collection lands in HC

Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s plan to appoint two firms for door-to-door garbage collection has landed in a legal tangle.
One of the disqualified firms has on Wednesday challenged the civic body’s move to award tender to lowest bidder — BVG India Limited — in the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court. The HC has issued notices to municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar and BVG.
Interestingly, even as the award of the contract has been challenged in court, the civic administration has submitted the proposal before standing committee to issue work orders to both the selected firms. The matter is slated to be discussed on September 7.
To strengthen city’s solid waste management system, the NMC had invited tenders to appoint two firms for door-to-door collection of segregated solid waste and to fetch it to processing site for 10 years.
Petitioner A2Z Infra Services Limited, through its lawyer AM Sudame, contended that BVG India submitted misleading documents to secure the work order from the NMC. Sudame said the firm submitted documents claiming over three years of experience of working with Jaipur Municipal Corporation, whereas in reality the civic body had scrapped its contract for unsatisfactory work. Similarly, BVG India misled the NMC about its net worth, the petitioner said, adding one of the conditions was that the bidder must have a net worth of not less than Rs30 crore, which the respondent does not possess.
The petitioner firm, which had also participated in the tender process, pointed out that the tender was issued on May 30 this year for two packages — package 1 comprises zone 1 to 5, while package 2 is related to zone 6 to 7. In all, seven firms participated in the tender process which included technical and financial bids. After completion of all processes, NMC selected two firms — AG Enviro Infra Project Pvt Ltd and BVG India — for the purpose for door-to-door garbage collection.
A2Z Infra further claimed that BVG submitted work experience of six years from 2012 to 2017, which was pertaining to Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. Though the work was allotted to its sister concern BVG Kshitij India, the respondent is not even a shareholder of the firm.
The petitioner claimed that both work experiences submitted by the firm couldn’t be taken into consideration for determination of its eligibility for getting the contract.
“The minimum eligibility criteria prescribed in the tender document was obtaining 70/100 marks. The BVG secured 77 marks. If the misleading documents were removed, the firm will end up scoring 69 marks and thus become ineligible for the NMC’s work order,” the petitioner said, demanding BVG’s disqualification on all these grounds.
INFOBOX
murky affairs
* Nagpur city generates 1,250 metric tonne garbage every day
* NMC has divided city into north and south zones. From Wadi to Variety Square-Zero Mile-LIC Square-Central Avenue up to Pardi, city will be divided on both sides of the roads with five zones in north and similar number in south
* Contractor of north zone will cater to a population of about 11.35 lakh and an area of 98sqkm, while the other contractor will cater to around 13.63 lakh population spread over 122.47sqkm area
* For package 1, BVG was declared L1 as it quoted Rs1,656 per metric tonne for lifting garbage
* For package 2, AG Enviro Project Pvt Ltd was declared as L1 as it quoted Rs1,800 per metric tonne
Grounds
As per eligibility conditions, the bidder firms must have certain work experience as well as a pre-determined minimum net worth
BVG does not hold requisite experience as prescribed in the eligibility conditions
Essential condition of the tender was that the work experience should be for a period of one year to the month of invitation of bids and BVG has failed to prove the same by submitting commencement of operation date. Petitioner claimed that BVG does not possess requisite experience