Speaker V. Vaithilingam on Friday gave a ruling to Minister for Social Welfare M. Kandasamy, who holds the Port portfolio, to lay before the House all files pertaining to allocation of dredging work to the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI).
The Speaker gave the ruling after Ashok Anand (AINRC) said the government exchequer had suffered a huge loss because of allocation of work to the DCI and alleged that procedures were not followed while allocating the work.
Mr. Kandasamy said the government was in favour of inviting open tender for allocating dredging work. However, the Lt. Governor insisted on allocating the work to a public sector undertaking.
Loss to exchequer
A. Anbalagan (AIADMK) said the decision to allocate work to the DCI had caused the exchequer ₹6 crore loss and urged the government to conduct a probe.
Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy, in his intervention, said the government was in favour of allocating the work at the lowest cost. It was on the advice of the Lt Governor that the work had been allocated to the DCI, he said.
Mr. Anand said the Lt Governor had only urged the government to explore the possibility of allocating the work to DCI.
The Minister assured to the House to get all files and correspondence related to dredging work by Monday.
