Auditors have objected to the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) awarding to a private firm the leak detection work on its drinking water pipelines in the city.
The KWA had awarded the project to the Delhi-based Four ITS Private Ltd., which executes the work through the Canada-based company, Pure Technologies, and the Manila-based Maynilad Water Services Inc., using advanced technologies Smart Ball and Sahara. The private firm had scanned around 40 km of KWA’s decades-old pipeline networks in the city in two phases, without much result.
Explanation sought
The office of the Accountant General has asked the KWA to explain the circumstance that led to awarding the work to the firm without inviting tender. KWA was asked to clarify on the criterion and mode of selection of the firm. The AG’s office said the work was awarded by waiving the tender call.
Sources said the auditors had questioned the necessity of accepting the proposal of the firm without preparing an estimate. It had pointed out that without assessing the results of the trial run, work order was given for the second stage. The firm was supposed to carry out tests in Kochi also, but it ended up doing the work in Kollam. It was reliably learnt that after the objections were raised, the utility stopped payment for the second stage work.
Costly technologies were used for detection
KWA stops payment for second phase work
