Congress has sniffed a scam in the tendering of sewerage projects through the Public Works Department and Sewerage and Infrastructure Development Corporation of Goa Ltd (SIDCGL).
As against the Central Vigilance Commission’s ‘Guidelines for Tendering’, which lay down that any generic, and not patented, technology to be adopted has to be chosen by an open and transparent tender process, PWD and SIDCGL openly favour a specific technology, cyclic activated sludge treatment process (CASP), which is patented.
It has come to light that tenders are floated seeking bids only from those who have access to C-Tech technology, a massive manipulation at the stage of tendering which predictably favours one Sandeep Assolkar and his Navi Mumbai-based SFC Environmental Technologies Pvt Ltd, which owns the patent for C“Tech.
Questioning the BJP-led government on this blatant violation of vigilance guidelines, Congress on Monday launched a barrage of criticism against the faulty tendering by PWD and SIDCGL in connection with tenders for sewerage treatment facilities.
C-Tech is one of the 11 technologies which are employed in sewerage treatment plants.
While SIDCGL and the company’s websites claim that C-Tech provides ‘the highest treatment efficiency possible in a single step biological process’, comparative studies of all available sewerage treatment technologies declare that C-Tech is the second most expensive technology, in terms of capital investment and maintenance.
Besides, it is also extremely power intensive and guzzles electricity at a rate which is bound to dent Goa’s power sector in the near future.
Sewerage management technology is usually selected on the basis of population and terrain. However, this technology has been adopted in Panaji’s 12.5 MLD STP, 6.75 MLD STP at Sirvodem for Margao, 0.8 MLD STP in Panaji and 1.3 MLD plant at Goa Medical College and Hospital, Bambolim.
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Avinash Tavares stated, “With Assolkar’s company owning the patent, they can afford to bid low and as a result, his company wins majority of the tenders floated by PWD and SIDCGL. The other companies have to buy the technology from this company, which escalates their costs.”
It was disclosed that with technology and infrastructure forming the major components of a bid, while SFC Environmental Technologies bids around Rs five to seven crores, other companies bid to the tune of around Rs 11 crore.
In addition to this, SIDCGL has also publicly endorsed SFC Environmental Technologies and its technology on the homepage of its website.
“The present government has made C-Tech a standard technology through its manipulated tenders. While virtually copying content on C-Tech from the company’s parent website, these departments haven’t offered details of other available technologies and reasons behind selection of C-Tech over the rest,” Tavares charged.
Suspecting a major scam in the sewerage management sector, Congress has further declared that manipulation of tenders could probably be just the tip of the iceberg.
