E-tender scam: 9 civic engineers suspended

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Tuesday said it has suspended nine engineers allegedly involved in the e-tendering scam. It has also black-listed 40 private contractors who, it is suspected, were favoured by manipulation of the online system for allocation of ward level maintenance work.

The nine officials suspended are sub-engineers in six civic wards, while the contractors are largely small-time operators. A departmental inquiry has been initiated against 14 other engineers also.

What has the civic body said?
Municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte said the civic body would consider approaching the Economic Offences Wing or the Anti Corruption Bureau to book the guilty after the offence is confirmed by an internal probe.

The e-tendering system was introduced in 2012 to curb corruption and bring about transparency in the allocation of work like road repairs and maintenance of streetlights in the various wards.

What led to punitive action?
Corporators across the board had demanded quick action against the alleged offenders who it was suspected manipulated the online tendering system to favour some contractors.

A preliminary inquiry found that the engineers illegally opened the tenders before the stipulated period to help certain contractors and blocked out others from the system.

What's the size of scam?
On Tuesday, the civic chief played down the size of the scam. Making a presentation on the matter, Kunte said the extent of the malpractices would amount to about Rs6.41 crore and not Rs100 crore as was being speculated by some.

"So far, we have issued 17,000 works through the e-tendering system. Of this, 412 tenders were opened within 24 hours. When some ward officers realized that this was done in the case of 229 tenders (worth Rs13.08 cr), they were cancelled. There are malpractices in some of the other 183 tenders also," he said.

Is the punishment severe?
Senior civic officials said the engineers, if found guilty of the offence, could face up to a year in prison under the IT Act.

"It is learned that the officials shared their log-in IDs and passwords that are necessary for digital signatures and opening tenders, with others. Sharing such information is an offence as per the law," an official said.

What are the vested interests?
"The old civil works contract (CWC) system was marred by a nexus between contractors and corporators. Now, contractors who prefer the CWC would like the e-tendering process to fail. The civic engineers involved didn't realize that they were playing with danger," the officer said.

Corporators have demanded a thorough inquiry that will also investigate the role of the additional municipal commissioner heading the IT department. They have said that the loopholes should be plugged immediately.

The 9 officials suspended
The sub-engineers who have been suspended are: Maheshchandra Naik (F-South ward), Shrirang Kanetkar (G-North), Anil Varade and Siddhivinayak Khadapakar (both K-West), Parmanand Parulekar and Rajendra Joshi (R-South), Deepak Koimbtare and Sandeep Ardale (P-South) and Pradip Jangam (T ward).