Minutes after Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta reduced the blacklisting period of M/s Buildwell Construction, the contractor on Thursday emerged as the lowest bidder in a ₹90-crore contract to transport garbage in Andheri (West), for which the firm had bid despite being blacklisted for five years.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will now draft a proposal and table it before the Standing Committee later this month as a matter of procedure. Once the work order is allotted, collection and transportation work will be done for a period of seven years.
In 2012, after discovering a scam in the Sewerage Operations Department in which several contractors were found to have been paid without having done the work, the BMC blacklisted Buildwell Construction and others for seven years.
Soon after, two of the contractors appealed the ban, saying they had raised bills but had not claimed money. The then municipal commissioner, Sitaram Kunte, decided not to blacklist the two contractors. Buildwell Construction made a similar request, but only in 2016, saying it too had raised bills but hadn’t claimed the money.
A committee of two deputy municipal commissioners, appointed to resolve the issue, ruled that the then civic chief’s order applied to Buildwell Construction as well, and the ban on the firm was reduced by two years till 2017-end.
However, Buildwell Construction once again approached the BMC, seeking relief of at least another three months. The same committee granted this request as well, bringing down the ban period by a further six months. This enabled Buildwell Construction to bid for contracts worth ₹150 crore for Andheri (West) and Bandra towards the end of 2017.
“The committee did not look into the validity of the earlier municipal commissioner’s decision, but only whether the same decision applies in this case or not. They found that it did, and reduced the ban by two years in 2016. By the same logic, the ban was reduced by another six months,” said a senior civic official.
Nearly eight months later, in July, some corporators questioned the firm’s participation, and the matter was referred to Mr. Mehta. The commissioner on Thursday upheld the deputy municipal commissioners’ initial report, allowing Buildwell Construction’s bid for these contracts.
Soon after, price bids for both works were opened and Buildwell Construction qualified for the ₹90-crore Andheri (West) contract as the lowest bidder.
Samajwadi Party corporator Rais Shaikh, who raised the issue last month, told The Hindu said, “It is unfortunate that Buildwell Construction has been allowed to bid. This will set a wrong precedent, and all blacklisted contractors will approach the BMC for leniency.”
