The lifesaving oxygen generation plants commissioned last year at Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) hospitals at Gandhi Nagar and Nai Sarai for a whopping Rs 2.3 crore are of unknown origin and sub-standard. But, despite knowing the supplier committed a fraud in installing the “Delhi-made” equipment instead of the specified ones, the CCL mandarins are taking no action!
The role of the Ranchi-based PSU has become doubtful since it is sitting over the complaints of the bungling even after its sister concern, the Dhanbad-headquartered Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), immediately cancelled the order to the same supplier after it came to know of its modus-operandi of obtaining orders in the name of an Ahmedabad-based company Airshuddhi Engineers, but supplying sub-standard products of unknown origins.
Incidentally, the same supplier, Ranchi-based Galaxy Agencies, had won the bid of supplying two sets of 1,000 litres per minute oxygen plants to CCL for Rs 2.28 crore whereas it had quoted much lower Rs 2.19 crore for supplying two sets of the same plants along with booster pumps to the BCCL for just Rs 2.19 crore.
Talking to The Pioneer on phone from Ahmedabad, Airshuddhi Engineers managing director Neeraj Kumar Singh said they have already sent a legal notice to the CCL and are in the process of filing an online FIR. “We are a well-established oxygen generation plant manufacturer. Our company was established in 2014. During covid many hospitals across India were installing oxygen plants and we got a query from Ranchi-based Galaxy Agencies that wanted to resell our plants, which we immediately approved. The necessary paper work was done. The supplier used our credentials to bag the order on the GEM portal, but didn’t procure our products and instead supplied some obscure oxygen plants to the CCL,” Singh said.
Singh further said, “Whenever we enquired from the seller, he parried giving one excuse or the other citing delay in the supply. Since, I am basically from Jharkhand and my relatives are working with BCCL, I came to know that the machines have already been commissioned in Ranchi and in the process of being supplied to Dhanbad. I found out that the supplier has procured the machines from some company in Noida. I immediately brought this to the notice of the CCL and BCCL officials. The BCCL immediately cancelled the order, but the CCL is sitting over our complaints.”
The Airshuddhi managing director said he went to Ranchi 6-7 months back and personally met the CCL chairman cum managing director (CMD) PM Prasad, but no action has been taken so far despite many reminders. “I have been forced to send a legal notice, he said and added, “Soon I am going to file an online FIR against CCL and the supplier. “Instead of taking action, the CCL asks queries from us. This is certainly a case of connivance. Else, how is it possible that no action is being taken despite the blatant misrepresentation of facts being brought to their notice,” he added.
Singh said he had also requested the coal companies to cancel the order to the supplier and instead give the order directly to them, but it went unheeded. “Tomorrow if any untoward incident happens, who will be responsible? My company’s credentials have been used, but fake plants have been installed,” he said.
The mobile number of the supplier provided on the GEM portal was “currently not available,” while the CCL CMD did not take the call on his mobile phone and did not respond to WhatsApp queries.