Mahayuti government favoured certain companies in infra tender: Congress

The Congress on Friday, 18 October, alleged that the Mahayuti government in Maharashtra privileged certain companies in infra tenders in return for campaign finance donations, costing the taxpayer at least Rs 10,903 crore.

The opposition party asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union minister Nitin Gadkari will be made answerable on this.

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh alleged that the Mahayuti Sarkar in Maharashtra privileged certain companies in infra tenders in return for campaign finance donations, costing the taxpayer at least Rs 10,903 crore.

He said this was akin to "pre-paid chanda, post-paid dhandha".

Congress' media and publicity department head Pawan Khera said, "The entire nation is aware that BJP brought the Electoral Bonds Scheme to tunnel funds. We have time and again highlighted how certain firms who donated to the BJP through the illegal and unconstitutional Electoral Bonds Scheme were given huge projects in lieu of buying electoral bonds. Perhaps, the biggest state which was duped by this 'chande ka dhanda', was Maharashtra."

All this was done by upending numerous established standard rules, he alleged at a press conference at the AICC headquarters here.

No wonder an FIR was filed against Sitharaman and other senior BJP leaders, he said.

Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Limited (MSRDC) opened the price bid for various highway projects in Maharashtra such as Virar-Alibaug Multimodal Corridor (MMC), Pune Ring Road (PRR), etc., he said.

Khera said the MSRDC had a rule that one bidder would get up to two packages only, but this rule was changed by defining eight projects as tunnel projects with different qualification conditions.

This was done to award most of the packages to a few entities, he said.

The MSRDC changed the pre-qualification criteria for these tunnels projects unlike its previous projects such as the 'Missing Link and Mumbai Nagpur' where the pre-qualification criteria for tunnel diameter and length were kept at 50 per cent for diameter and 20 per cent for length in convergence which is what NHAI, MoRTH, BRO, NHIDCL and others do, Khera said.

He said MSRDC decided to keep the pre-qualification criteria for tunnel diameter at 78 per cent of the tunnel diameter.

It was done so that other bidders could be excluded from the qualification and only three firms qualified for the requirements, Khera said.

Further, the tunnel length criteria were kept at just 6 per cent , i.e. 250 metres which matches the favoured company's previous experience of 290 metres Mumbai Nagpur Expressway, the Congress leader alleged.

Further, these eight projects were also removed from the criteria of a maximum of two packages to each bidder providing special treatment to these companies, he alleged.

Khera pointed to the benchmark price for similar works implemented by NHAI, MoRTH etc. provide a scope of fair prices.

NHAI /MoRTH award similar tunnel works at the cost of Rs 180 to 200 Cr./Km whereas MSRDC's operating rating for such tunnels is in the range of Rs 240-250 Cr/Km, Khera claimed.

Khera cited that the bid values for the eight projects stood at Rs 20,990 crore while the "fair price" for the projects would have been Rs 10,087 crore. The excess price for the projects, therefore, was Rs 10,903 crore.

Giving a timeline, Khera said that in April 2023, the MSRDC started inviting Requests for Qualification (RFQ) for the Pune Ring Road project which was defined as a tunnel project.

"For RFQ, various firms submitted the applications. It seemed as if these projects were defined as tunnel projects for some strange reason," he said.

In June, 2023, after receiving the RFQ applications, MSRDC again opened the bid and revealed that 28 firms had submitted the applications, he said.

The evaluation process of these 28 firms was completed in December 2023 in which it was revealed that 18 firms qualified for the next round, Khera said.

Among these 18 firms, a company qualified which later in July 2023 donated in electoral bonds, he said.

In January 2024, Khera said the MSRDC invited bid prices for these 18 firms with a construction deadline of 900 days.

In April 2024, they received 26 bids from 12 firms, Khera said and added that it must be noted that the lowest bid for each package's construction was significantly higher than MSRDC's estimate.

"Here, MSRDC had two choices - either increase their budget and give the contracts to the companies with higher bids to start the work or cancel the process and ask for new bids. But MSRDC gave contracts to these companies despite their high costs," he said.

"Will PM Modi, FM Nirmala Sitharaman and the Union Minister Nitin Gadkari be made answerable on this," Khera said.

The ruling Mahayuti alliance comprises Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena, BJP and Ajit Pawar-led NCP while the opposition MVA comprises the Congress, the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP).

The Election Commission on Tuesday announced that Maharashtra will vote in one phase on 20 November.

Chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar announced at a press conference here that the counting of votes will be held on 23 November, a day before the current Maharashtra assembly completes its term.