Hindustan Times: Chandigarh: Sunday,
June 12, 2016.
Accusing the
Punjab government of misusing taxpayers’ money, state’s leader of opposition
Charanjit Singh Channi said the transport department had spent more than `97
crore between 2007 and 2015 on the fleets of all ministers, including the CM
and deputy CM.
In a
statement issued here on Friday, Channi said that details secured under the RTI
(Right to Information) Act suggested that the highest amount, almost `18 crore,
had been spent in the year 2012-13, and Rs 13 crore in the year 2014-15.
He accused
the ruling family of the Badals of reducing the number of beneficiaries in the
year 2014-15 under the relief scheme for disabled people and taking more than
`2.5 lakh people off the old-age pension scheme in the year 2014-15.
A
disqualified Mumbai-based bidder has moved the Punjab and Haryana high court to
challenge the tendering process for making 14 Toyota Land Cruisers bulletproof
for the security of high-profile people in the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)
government of Punjab.
Streit
Armoring has alleged the reasons given for its disqualification to be
“arbitrary, illegal, and against the terms of the tender”. It has sought the
disqualification order and the award of contract to another company quashed.
The high court vacation bench of justice AG Masih and justice Hari Pal Verma
adjourned the hearing on Friday, which gives the petitioner liberty to implead
successful bidder, Chandigarh-based JCBL, till Tuesday. It has impleaded the
director general of police and the inspector general of police (special
protection unit) among others.
The tendering
process started on March 23 and the tender closed on April 14. The technical
bids were opened on April 15 and on May 25 the Mumbai-based company received
the letter of disqualification based on grounds that it claims were not part of
the original conditions. “Clause 12 of the tender required the bidder to have a
workshop or support centre in 100-kilometre radius of Chandigarh,” submitted
the Mumbai company, adding: “But we were disqualified on the ground that we did
not have a manufacturing unit in Chandigarh.”
A letter of
association from Toyota Motors, which makes four-wheel-drive Land Cruiser, was
also ignored along with the Mumbai company’s record of armouring six similar
vehicles in the year 2011-12, claims the petitioner. The reasons for
disqualification are “beyond criterion”, the petitioner submitted, adding that
the laboratory and field tests required under the contract terms were not
conducted for the successful bidder’s product, so there were doubts about the
capabilities of the vehicles it would deliver.
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