Civic bodies’ contract rules must change: Prithviraj Chavan

Taking potshots at the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation for the various corruption charges, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said it is necessary to stop contractors from using loopholes in the law to bag contracts.

“We will ask the municipal corporations to change the rules so that there is no misappropriation of funds,” Chavan said in the Vidhan Parishad on Wednesday.

The CM was replying to supplementary questions raised in the legislative council by Nationalist Congress Party member Kiran Pawaskar and others on a contract being awarded to RPS Infra Projects though it has been blacklisted for failing to complete an earlier project.

Chavan, in his written reply, pointed out that RPS Infra was on state government’s list of registered contractors, and by this merit it had bagged the contract to build bridges across the Mithi river in Mumbai on a build, operate, transfer basis.

He pointed out that RPS Infra had not been blacklisted, but demoted from the AA category to the A category after it had failed to build a few schools on time.

The different categories denote the cost level of the project work, with AA category having no limit.