Amid complaints of rampant corruption and anomalies in the work of Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) in various States, a Parliamentary panel has called for a national database of the corrupt and dubious contractors so that they are barred from getting any Government contract.
The suggestion to prepare a list came after the Standing Committee of Rural Development headed by lok Sabha member Dr P Venugopal took note of a slew of instances of mismanagement and non-payment of dues reported from some States during the hearing in the matter.
“During the examination, the issue of mis-procurement in Uttar Pradesh and Manipur has been raised before the Committee. Issue of non-payment of dues to the contractors in Uttarakhand for the work done under PMGSY also came up during the examination.
“Delay in preparation of Detailed Project Reports (DPRs), quoting 10 per cent-15 per cent less than the estimated price during bidding in Jharkhand, award of contracts to the dubious contractors, contractors not doing the work even after the award of tender were also highlighted before the Committee,” said the panel in its report submitted in Parliament recently.
It took serious view of the submissions and recommended that a national data-base of the corrupt and dubious contractors be prepared so that they can be barred from the very beginning of the contract process.
“Also, timely payment of works done under the programme be ensured so that the workers are paid in time,” said the panel which have also sought revamping of the procurement process to weed out corruption and mis-appropriation at various level.
Also, said the panel, to ensure transparency and harness various advantages of electronic tendering, entire bidding of procurement of works under the programme should be carried out only through e-procurement.
The Ministry's evasive stand on its suggestion to prepare a national level list of corrupt contractors irked the panel calling it “not acceptable.”
However, the Government In its reply said that the States are asked to review the PMGSY Procurement management system and identify an officer of the level of Chief Engineer and designated as the Nodal officer to receive and enquire into the complaints relating to procurement.
In case the information furnished by the bidder is found incorrect at the later stage, the State is required to take appropriate legal action including blacklisting of the defaulting bidder/ contractor. Further, in case there is a variation in the scanned copy of documents unloaded in e-tendering and hard copy of documents submitted by bidder, the bidder is liable to be debarred from participating in PMGSY projects for a period of five years, pointed out the Government.