Taking serious note of the letter written by Karnataka State Contractors’ Association to Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging that contractors in the State were forced to pay a bribe of upto 40% of the project cost to government officers and elected representatives to get their dues cleared, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Thursday said he had instructed Chief Secretary P. Ravi Kumar to conduct an inquiry to inquire into any lapses in awarding contractors.
“I have ordered the Chief Secretary to scrutinise tenders through heads of departments and probe if any lapses are found in awarding of contracts,” Mr. Bommai told presspersons after the Cabinet meeting here. The Chief Minister said he had written to the Chief Secretary to conduct a special scrutiny of tenders, if any, finalised after his government came to power.
On July 6, the Karnataka State Contractors’ Association wrote to Mr. Modi alleging that contractors were forced to pay a bribe of up to 40% of the project cost to officers and elected representatives. All contents of the letter would be inquired into, he said.
“Why they sent the letter there [to PM], I do not know,” the Chief Minister said. He said all irregularities would be known when the probe was conducted. The association’s letter was “very general” and does not cite specific instances, Mr. Bommai said.
To ensure transparency, he said, an electronic system would be created for raising automatic bills based on the seniority of contractors and projects. Tenders would be cleared on time as delay would give rise to many suspicions, he said.
Mr. Bommai said the Chief Secretary has been told to issue government orders soon for constituting two tenders committees headed by a retired judge of the High Court to estimate and decide conditions for tenders.
The State Cabinet recently took a decision to constitute two committees to check unrealistic estimation of tender amounts by various government departments and agencies in tenders. Under the new rule, no tenders would be invited above ₹50 crore without clearance by committees.
Committees would scrutinise all tender proposals of all departments and only after the scrutiny, the departments would be allowed to float tenders.
