Mumbai: The State Cabinet on Tuesday decided to audit all purchase and procurement orders made by State governments over the past 15 years.
The move is likely to be seen as another attempt to corner the previous Congress-Nationalist Congress Party regime on the issue of corruption.
The decision was taken while making amendments to the new Procurement Policy passed and implemented across all departments since last year.
Until the policy was passed, the procurement was made based on the rates finalised by the Central Stores Purchase Organisation (CSPO), a State-run subsidised kirana shop set up in 1992. The CSPO streamlined procurement of welfare goods for social schemes by both the Centre and the State, which were run by the Zilla Parishads and local bodies. But the new policy replaced the Rate Contract system for most types of tenders.
However, State officials denied vendetta politics. They said it was an attempt to find flaws in the present system. Senior officials said it would be difficult to scrutinise purchases easily worth over Rs. 1 lakh crore.
An official of the finance department said, “Carrying out such an analysis is the State’s prerogative. It is an attempt to make the system better once we have idedntiffied the flaws.”
The CSPO, which is supervised by the State Industries Department, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. In 2013, it was reported that CSPO and department officials colluded to award contracts for the purchase of goods worth Rs 451.88 crore to second-rate contractors. Bogus documents were obtained by these contractors from fictitious foundries at Ahmednagar and Rajkot. Fake test reports from Mumbai laboratories were also used to clinch the contracts between 2010 and 2013.
The new procurement policy was also necessitated after the Fourth State Finance Commission pointed out the flaws in the procurement mechanisms of the State last eyar. The report said there was no uniform policy for accepting tenders and awarding contracts.
It pointed out how contracts were awarded over and above estimates or without proper competition. In several cases, the Rate Contract formulated by the CSPO were not followed, and expenditure was booked in the cashbook against minus balance.
The new procurement policy had made e-tendering mandatory for every purchase over Rs 3 lakh. It had adopted the Swiss Challenge system of procurement and scrapped the Rate Contract system. An e-portal was also set up for all purchases made by the State departments.
Ministers Pankaja Munde and Vinod Tawde have already courted controversy over purchases of goods, including Chikki and fire extinguishers
