NT NETWORK
Panaji
The experts in the construction business have stated that as per the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) manual, which is based on the General Financial Rules (GFRs), tenders must be invited by the government for all its works/ projects as proposed to be given on contract, unless the amount involved in proposal for such works/ projects is Rs 50,000 or less.
“However, in emergent cases such work/ project can be ordered to be taken up for execution departmentally and on piece work system up to Rs 10 lakh, while all the tenders of the work above Rs 10 lakh should be processed using the e-Procurement system,” it was informed.
A senior government official informed this daily that the cabinet approval for awarding to an agency the repair work of Kala Academy at an amount running in crores, without following the tendering process could backfire if someone approaches the Central Vigilance Commission or the court of law. “This is in total violation of the financial rules and regulations,” he added.
“In fact, the repair work of Kala Academy cannot be placed under the emergent category as the file of the particular work was moving in the government departments for the past one-and-a-half year, for restructuring purpose,” the official maintained.
The senior official said that emergent work means when a pump supplying water is damaged and people face hardships, then the government can directly contact agency which is in pump manufacturing business, and ask it to install the same.
He further explained that if a bridge washes away due to floods and this results into inconvenience to the public, then the government can ask steel manufacturing company to install a steel bridge on emergency basis.
Yet another government official stated that if a work concerning old structure is of emergent nature then it should be awarded to a person/ agency, which had originally worked on that structure. “The original work of Kala Academy was carried out by one Hadkar, and therefore, its repair work should now have gone to this agency, instead of M/s Techton Buildcon Pvt Ltd,” he observed, pointing out that M/s Techton Buildcon Pvt Ltd has no such experience, and has been repairing Mumbai-based Goa Bhavan since past five years.
Finally, the most interesting part of the Kala Academy project is although the public works department has prepared estimates for this project as well as handled its technical aspects, the responsibility of payments as related to this project is neither with the PWD, nor with the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation. All these payment-related activities are handled by the department of art and culture.