TDP fires first salvo in Polavaram tender war

HYDERABAD: Telugu Desam, the main opposition party in the state, on Friday released a document claiming that SEW company was found ineligible and excluded from the process of Polavaram project tenders originally, but it qualified later thanks to the intervention of the chief minister.The TDP released a copy of the minutes of the meetings of the Committee of Engineers-in-Chief on Technical Bid Evaluation in respect of ECRF dam and spillway of Indira Sagar (Polavaram) project held earlier this month.The five-member Engineers Committee said that M/s SEW-Patel-Amr (JV), as per condition 30-C-3 of Financial Requirement of tender details, the bidder should have satisfactorily completed similar works of value not less than Rs 2,250 crore (not less than 90 per cent of the contract value) as a prime contractor or as a lead partner in a joint venture (JV) in the last 10 financial years.The firm (SEW-Patel- AMR) could not meet the value of similar works executed during the last 10 financial years as required by the bid document after discarding the invalid certificates issued by private organisations viz Shree Maheswara Hydel Power Corporation Ltd, Mandaleswar, Madhya Pradesh and Malana Power Company Ltd, Bhilwara Group, Kullu, Himachal Pradesh.Production of certificates from private organisations was acceptable, the committee felt in the report, which was released to the media by TDP leaders A Revanth Reddy and Tummala Nageswara Rao.Revanth Reddy alleged that chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy had acted as `engineer-in-chief' and finalised the tenders.The chief minister did what a chief engineer should have, the TDP leader alleged.He said the TDP was ready for a debate with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) on the selection of an `ineligible' company for Polavaram work contract and the way Sakala Janula Samme was diluted after getting a contact by the managing director of Namaste Telangana.Nageswara Rao demanded that the chief minister respond in the wake of the release of the documents by the TDP.At the intervention of the chief minister, the `ineligible' SEW was qualified and awarded the contract of constructing the Polavaram irrigation project, he alleged.Clarifying that his party stood for construction of the dam, he said the chief minister should place all relevant files before the speaker.