‘State govt misused Nirbhaya fund on road safety project’

Ranchi: The state transport department has reportedly conducted a “corrupt act” while awarding a Rs 9-crore project under the Nirbhaya Fund for women’s safety to a Mumbai-based company, which forged its work experience, claimed a road safety activist attached with the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), a wing of the central ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH).
Stating that the very purpose of women’s safety and security has been defeated by the act, road safety activist Kamaljeet Singh said the state transport department connived with three Mumbai-based entities to award the project fraudulently.
While addressing a press conference here on Saturday, Singh, who is also a member of the European Association for Accident Research and Analysis, said, “Three firms, namely M/s Paras Infra, M/s Pragati Enterprises and M/s Konark Structural Engineers, were shortlisted by the technical committee of the transport department.”
He further said, “The committee completed the evaluation of bids during a meeting held on April 8 this year. The meeting was presided by transport commissioner Kiran Kumari Pasi during which M/s Paras Infra was selected for the project. However, the company had submitted forged documents for its experience certificate and they were ignored by the transport department officials.”
The project is about the development, customization, deployment and management of a statewide vehicle tracking system. The project is assisted by MoRTH under the Nirbhaya Fund for the safety and security of women while travelling on public vehicles. The proposed system seeks to equip all public passenger transport vehicles with vehicle location tracking (VLT) devices and emergency buttons for raising an alarm.
Singh further said RTI responses from the public sector units — Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited (CPCL) and Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) — confirmed that none of the three Mumbai-based companies, which qualified for the technical evaluation, had engaged them for work related to vehicle tracking devices. All three companies, in support of their experience, had submitted documents of these petroleum and gas companies as having worked for the PSUs.
While HPCL denied issuing a work order worth Rs 6.19 crore to M/s Paras Infra as the latter claimed in its bid, another RTI reply from IOCL confirmed that no work order of Rs 6.97 crore related to vehicle tracking device was awarded to M/s Paras Infra, said Singh, who is based in Ludhiana and Delhi and attached with the NRSC as a consultant.
The other two companies had also submitted work experience relating to vehicle tracking devices with CPCL and GAIL. In its reply to the RTI query, GAIL said no work order or contract was awarded to M/s Pragati Infra worth Rs 8.97 crore. CPCL also denied giving any work to M/s Konark Structural Engineers relating to the vehicle tracking device, he claimed.
Singh also said, “I have been working on the issue of road safety for the last two decades and the wrongdoings of the state transport department are going to affect the safety of women and children on the roads. How can I let that go? I had also raised this issue here during my last visit but the government hasn’t taken any cognizance.”
Transport commissioner Kiran Kumari Pasi was not available for comments on the charges.