Chennai: Taking a signal from City Corporation, Chennai Metropolitan Air Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) or Metrowater, has made the tender process completely online.
Changes have been implemented in four recent tenders of metrowater, with that asking all competitors to bid and make a serious money deposit, which is 1% of the project costs, online.
The tender is to put a pipe in Lake Chembarambakkam, purchase iron pipes, treatment plant maintenance and pump station on the Veeranam lake, and buy a machine for the maintenance of waste pipes.
“Previously, we called the online tender, but the bidder would take a document and place it in the box outside the executive engineer office and supervisory engineer.
The tender will then be studied and the name was announced.
Now, the whole system has been made online,” said an engineer Superintending CMWSSB .
In addition to ensuring more transparency, officials who move, this will help the board save money because it will enable better competition, which is not possible in the previous system.
Toi has reported how Goonda is placed outside the office and the contractor is locked at the hotel to ensure only a specific contractor that wins offers.
In some cases, the number of offers has been changed after the tender is opened.
The CMWSSB award contract is worth more than 2,500 crores every year.
Of this amount, around 250 crores for maintenance only.
Although there are nearly 600 contractors in the city, only a few offers for these projects.
Some of these contractors are under class I and can bid on projects above 75 lakh.
While a group of activists welcomed METRO water, several requests that the state government changed transparency in tender action, making an obligatory online tender process in all departments.
“We have submitted a petition to the chairman of the Minister and the Minister of Finance and hopes it will be implemented this year.
Chennai Corporation takes 15 years to fully implement an online system, but they have reaped the benefits,” said Jayayaram Venkatsan, the Convention of the Arappor NGO Iakkam.
Officials, however, must look for tender conditions that allow only certain contractors to participate and ensure the conditions are removed, he added.