NASHIK: The Solid Waste Department of Nashik Municipal Corporation has completed the verification of documents of 11 contractors who participated in the tender process for the Rs 354 crore new ghantagadi (garbage collection vehicle) tender process of NMC, which was surrounded by controversy.
A team from the Solid Waste Department, which had gone to Surat Municipal Corporation to verify the documents, has returned. Therefore, although the way is now cleared to open the tender, the final decision however will be taken only after a meeting of the tender committee. While the contracts in the municipal corporation are in dispute, the department has increased the contract for new ghantagadi from Rs 176 crores to Rs 354 crores.
The change in the tender conditions for the participation of certain monopolists has made this new contract process of the ghantagadi suspicious. Due to the alleged pressure of the ruling BJP, the tender process is in the final stage even after the dispute. Six tenders were received for CIDCO division, four for Nashik West and three for Nashik East, while for Satpur, Panchavati and Nashik Road divisions, in the first phase, due to insufficient tenders, the deadline for submission was extended.
Nashik Road has received three extensions for the second time, while for Satpur and Panchavati divisions it has received three and one tenders respectively for the third extension. As only one tender has been received for the Panchavati division, the decision on whether to open the tender or not rests solely with the Municipal Commissioner Kailas Jadhav.
The three monopolists have attached the experience of working in Surat Municipal Corporation while submitting tenders for four divisions. However, the administration has decided to cross-examine the documents of all the monopolists after some other monopolists objected to this ‘experience’. Therefore, the solid waste department had started verifying these documents.
Three of these companies had submitted documents of Surat Municipal Corporation. Therefore, a team led by Dr Avesh Palod, Head of Solid Waste Department, had rushed to Surat to check the documents. Examination of the relevant documents at this time revealed that the documents submitted by these three monopolies were genuine. After that the team has returned to Nashik and now the relevant information will be tabled before the tender committee meeting. This is likely to pave the way for opening tenders.
