BMC makes process of awarding road contracts entirely online

In order to bring in further transparency in awarding road contracts, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to make the tendering process completely online.
Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta today issued a directive to this effect, a senior official said.
As per the new system, the contractors do not need to submit a hard copy of any of the documents to the civic body which will keep the identity of the contractor secret. Earlier the contractors were asked to submit documents like scanned copy of demand draft, which had allegedly become a tool to favour the bidders while awarding contracts.

"Since the entire process has now become online, the tendering process would become transparent," an official statement said.
The order has been issued by the Commissioner also to ensure greater participation from applicants, it said adding, "Now the contractors would be mandated to appoint at least one quality controller engineer, who would be supervising the work being carried out by the contractor."
"Earlier, contractors were required to submit a scanned copy of the demand draft of Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) and and Additional Security Deposit (ASD), in the absence of which their names were not listed in the tendering process. But now this process has been scrapped and entire process has become online," it added.

Last month, the civic chief had launched a crackdown on dubious contractors.
Experts in the field alleged that due to the tweaked tendering conditions, blacklisted and tainted contractors form fixed cartels used to bag contracts every year and deliver shoddy and sub-standard work leaving city's roads dotted with potholes.
Last week, a group of contractors had unanimously demanded BMC to draw a new tendering department and guidelines to clean the process.