Hyderabad: Congress objects to calling of KLI tenders

Hyderabad: Congress has strongly objected to calling of tenders for Kaleswaram Lift Irrigation project by the government when the entire nation and world is under the grip of coronavirus. Former Minister and senior Congress leader Nagam Janardhan Reddy has written an open letter to Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Sunday in this regard. He said that the procedure of inviting tenders did not allow competition and lead to loot of public money.

He said that there is a serious defect in the preparation of the estimates or tenders. The cost of civil works is worked out with the help of Standard Schedule of Rates (SSR) whereas in the case of purchase of electro and mechanical equipment no such procedure is followed.

As there were no SSR for purchase of electro and mechanical equipment national and globally bids should have been obtained and estimates are prepared on the basis of lowest quotations. The Government of Telangana, instead of calling quotations from the reputed manufacturers, followed most unscientific and crude method of fixing the rates of E and M equipment with an intention to boost the cost and to loot the public money.

The Irrigation department has entrusted the work of survey, design, and estimates of E and M equipment and preparation of Detailed Project Report (DPR) to a private company. It has not followed the procedure being adopted by Engineering Staff College of India.

The former Minister said that the E and M works have been entrusted to the Power Generation Corporation when Alimeneti Madhava Reddy (AMRP) Lift Project has been taken up during the combined AP period.