River Rejuvenation or Pocket Rejuvenation of the BMC?

Subject : “Designing, Providing, Constructing and commissioning modernized and fully automated package/modular Sewage Treatment Plants (STP) based on MBR technology along Poisar river on Design Build Operate (DBO), along with 15 years of Operation and Maintenance and Providing and laying of sewer network, provision of Interceptors for diversion of DWF, construction of service road and road side drains on either banks of Poisar River for interception & diversion of sewage..”

Bid No.: 7100177427

Estimated Cost : INR 7,51,69,34,651.00

Quoted Cost :  INR 10,91,15,68,675.00

The above bid was quoted by Ashoka- Gondwana Joint Venture in which they have come L1. The bid had the following shortfalls which had been brought to the notice of the department by the consultant, but as usual ignored!

1. Instead of the the MOU with the bidder (ABL-GEL-LNA JV)  Supratech Germany ( Technology Provider) signed an MoU with one of the constituent ABL (Ashoka Buildcon Ltd) which had no experience of a single STP.

2. Supratech had claimed that Lab Systems & Biotech India Pvt. Ltd. is its Authorized Channel Partner. In such case the MOU is required to be actually executed between Lab System as Technology Provider and JV as Bidder clearly mentioning about Lab System having authorized licence to execute the project using technology of Supratech which again is not done.

3. The said MOU is executed by Supratech in Germany and crucial  apostillisation from Embassy was missing.

4. Certificate of experience submitted by Supratech as Technology Provider is from Chinese origin and therefore its translation and  apostlisation which is mandatory was missing. The other issue was of Supratech as technology partner concealing it’s Chinese origin.

5. The undertaking annexed to the draft MOU uploaded by Authority stipulates it to be executed on Rs. 200/- stamp paper but that too was missing.

6. The confirmation annexed to the draft MOU uploaded by Authority was required from the Bidder i.e. ABL-GEL-LNA JV but was missing in uploaded documents.

7. MOST IMPORTANT– In the MOU executed for HDD Work between ABL-GEL-LNA JV and Shri Ram Drilling Company. After perusing Clause 4 of the said MOU it was learnt that the said MOU will expire upon occurrence of one of the events, which will occur first. i.e. the event mentioned in Clause (e) … (on elapse of 365 days from the effective date herein above written) which makes it legally void.

8. The undertaking for non-blacklisting is required to be submitted by all individual joint venture partners and the same was also not submitted.

Going by the above points & As per Article “Submission of Tender” – it was clearly mentioned that inadequacy of technical and financial capacity with respect to eligibility criteria in the tender will be treated as non curable defect as matter of which the bid should have been declared non-responsive.

As such, the bidder ABL-GEL-LNA JV had violated the terms and conditions of the tender documents by intentionally hiding and misrepresenting the fact before the Authority. Based on the above & the nature of the lapses, the bid submitted by ABL-GEL-LNA JV felt way too short to become eligible to be qualified.