Budget 2001: A Primer

The tender was awarded to Siemens, CMC and C-DAC were earlier disqualifiedon conditions, which these companies said, were unfair. A CMC official toldThe Financial Express that his company will now put in a fresh bid.

The MSEB source said that the company chairman Vinay Bansal ordered thescrapping of the tender, calling for fresh bids. The scrapping of the tenderwill now pave the way for Indian companies to rebid and MSEB can get the newsystem at a price which is way below the actual quote, he added.

CMC Ltd, which is a public sector undertaking under the department ofelectronics, had alleged that MSEB tender documents were modified todisqualify it and C-DAC, paving the way for Siemens to bag a Rs 23 croreorder for replacing the R-30 computer.

The pre-qualification conditions imposed by MSEB were allegedly in favour ofSiemens as it emphasised on the EMS capability of the prospective vendor,although the tender was only for the replacement of the SCADA system.CMC had kept its options open to approach the Central Vigilance Commission(CVC) for alleged irregularities by the board in its tender.

MSEB sources said that the chief engineer (load dispatch), who headed theworking group for replacement of the system, was not consulted during theselection process. The qualifying conditions prepared by the committee werealso modified without the knowledge of the chief engineer.

Though the original draft for the tender clearly mentions that only vendorshaving proper infrastructure in India may be allowed to quote, this wasdeleted and experience in EMS was highlighted to suit the requirements ofSiemens, according to a document available with The Financial Express.

Sources said that the tender had also been unnecessarily inflated. Forinstance, civil works have been incorporated in it despite having all thenecessary infrastructure for the computer and it does not take more than atable to put up the computer system. The cost for the civil works werequoted at Rs 1.50 crore, according to the documents.

In a note to the technical member, the chief engineer (load dispatch) hasobserved that due to the inclusion of EMS specifications in the tender onlySiemens and ABB qualified for the tender. CMC and C-DAC, which have alsocarried out similar jobs for other SEB's in India, were excluded.

The price quoted by Siemens for the tender was Rs 17 crore, which thedocument termed as `exorbitant'. The note also mentioned that CMC and C-DAChad quoted Rs 2.93 crore and Rs 3.43 crore, respectively. CMC had allegedthat after the tender was released there had been seven extensions. Thisseemed unusual as the extensions were announced practically in the lastminute indicating that a particular vendor had influenced the tenderevaluation process, the officials claimed.