The issue was revealed when a contract for buying toughened glass for BEST buses came up for consideration before the committee.
A private advertising firm that was awarded an advertising contract on BEST’s AC King Long buses, fooled the undertaking by violating the terms of contract and earning lakhs in the process, alleged Sanjay Potnis, a senior corporator of the Shiv Sena, who has also been the BEST committee’s chairman in the recent past.
In the committee’s meeting on Monday, Potnis alleged that a private firm agreed to put bulletproof films on the windshields of over 270 AC King Long buses in the BEST’s fleet and also maintain them. However, it failed to do so and yet earned a few lakhs in advertising money, he claimed.
The issue was revealed when a contract for buying toughened glass for BEST buses came up for consideration before the committee. Potnis demanded stern action against the contractor and those BEST officials who overlooked the violation of the terms of contract. “Under the first finder scheme, we had asked the contractor to install bulletproof film on the glasses. However, now the administration says that the films were never installed. Why did it not take any action against the contractor then? And why waste the undertaking’s money on buying new glasses?” Potnis asked.
When asked for a reply to the allegations, OP Gupta, general manager, BEST, said that the contract with the private firm never included the word “bulletproof”. He said the words used were “glass protection system”. “If it was such an obvious breach then it would have been brought to our notice much before. This is an annual tender for buying glasses and the two things (bulletproof film and buying of toughened glass) are unrelated,” stated Gupta.
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