Nagpur: After cancelling the contract of Patansaongi Toll Plaza held by a Mumbai-based contractor who was found collecting toll on Saoner Road without submitting bank guarantee, the top echelons of NHAI are seen giving another chance to contractor Praveen Pandey in a newly released tender for the same. Agitated on the issue, Congress MLA Sunil Kedar, whistleblower in the case, has again written to the officials of NHAI and Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari. He has written to Chairman, NHAI, Deepak Kumar, D.O. Tawade , member (technical), Rajnesh Kapoor, G.M.(C.O.) and Rohit Singh, member (finance).
In the letter, Kedar has mentioned that in case no action taken against the contractor, he will be moving to court for the same. “It’s been history in NHAI that a contractor had been awarded as well as the agreement had been signed without the submission of Bank Guarantee. Either the contractor must be having a strong liasoning with the respective officials or strong potential influences which mandated the officials to adapt this wrong practice for the same”, read the letter.
It is to be mentioned that he had already written to Nitin Gadkari about the case. “Why this special provision has been made for this contractor only, as it’s never been done that without the B.G. submission toll had been awarded to any contractor, it’s nearly more than a month the toll is functional till date and no Bank Guarantee confirmation has been done”, Kedar had written in his letter to Gadkari.
“The entire previous contractor had submitted the Bank Guarantee before signing the agreement for Patansaongi toll plaza under Nagpur PIU Previously. So why this contractor whose prequalification as per the information on www.nhai.org website shows list of Application received as on 23.08.2017 as per new RFQ dated 22.08.2016 shows on 56 no. that his “Prequalificetion Kept In abeyance” till further orders”, he had added in the letter.
He also mentioned that the amount of B.G. is 1,39,17,000, which has not been submitted to NHAI. Pandey is not depositing the remittance to NHAI regularly on weekly basis. On the other side, Pandey claims that he had been following the rules and has undergone a loss of as high as Rs. 2 crores and has thus decided to approach court for justice.
