blacklisted contractors

Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta

Ms Shree Kaviraj Infratech Pvt Ltd

Ms Vishwashakti Construction

Ms Global Waste Management Cell Pvt Ltd

Global Waste Management Cell

Municipal Commissioner scraps garbage transport contract worth Rs 260 crore; the double-dealing ways of blacklisted and new firms are revealed.The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has finally woken up to inventive deceiving ways of some. Last week,scrapped a tender worth Rs 260 crore for a garbage transport contract in the western suburbs on the verge of going to a firm owned by ablacklisted contractor’s wife. He has promised to give new contractors a chance. Meanwhile, Mumbai Mirror has unearthed BMC documents that expose some dubious connections.In March, Mirror had reported blacklisted contractors’ devious ways of winding through BMC’s echelons to bag new contracts – they, allegedly in connivance with BMC officials, were making their wives directors in a new bidding company.A year after two firms –and– were blacklisted by the BMC for seven years in a desilting scam, they reportedly resurfaced in the race for a new contract, albeit in the form of new firms, this time owned by the wives of blacklisted directors. The new company,was shortlisted for a garbage transport contract in the western suburbs (worth Rs 260 crore), despite its direct link with the two blacklisted firms.According to documents accessed by Mirror, almost 90 per cent of MsPvt Ltd was owned by stakeholders who were part of the blacklisted firms Shree Kaviraj Infratech and Vishwashakti Construction. In fact, just weeks before the two companies were blacklisted, their directors resigned from directorship of Global Waste Management Cell, in July and December 2016, and appointed their wives instead.Even though a report by the BMC’s legal department stated that Global Waste Management Cell must not be given any new tender, the civic body was all set to award the contract. According to BMC rules, spouses of blacklisted directors are barred from bidding for new tenders in the civic body projects. Mirror’s report elicited Mehta’s intervention and he has now barred Global Waste Management Cell from participating in new tenders. “We will not tolerate blacklisted contractors tainting the BMC in any form,” Mehta told Mirror, confirming the debarment.Currently, Global Waste Management Cell has three directors –Pramod Mishra, Darshana Jain (wife of Kamlesh Jain, one of the two partners in the blacklisted Vishwashakti Construction) and Kusum Jain (wife of Vipul Jain, one of the directors in Shree Kaviraj Infratech). The trail doesn’t end here; the two firms also have a stake in Global Waste Management Cell. Besides, Vipul Jain’s partner in Kaviraj Infratech, Jamnalal Jain, also has stake in the company.In what was being named as ‘municipal family welfare programme for contractors’, last month the BMC had shortlisted a joint venture (of Ms KK Carrier and Ms Kaviraj MBB Waste Management Pvt Ltd) for a job involving mechanical sweeping of Western and Eastern Express Highways; this project was worth Rs 25 crore. According to BMC documents, Ms KK Carrier is a proprietary firm owned by Laxmidevi Jain, wife of Shree Kaviraj Infratech director Jamnalal Jain. Ms KK Carrier was also blacklisted for a year by the SWM department in 2009 for fabricating slips at BMC-operated weighbridges. Ms KK Carrier was allowed to bid following a go-ahead from Mehta.In another case, last month, a firm blacklisted in the 2016 road scam had bagged two new BMC projects, this time through another company owned by the contractor’s mother. Even this firm was later banned from bidding.Over the past few months, the BMC’s Solid Waste Management (SWM) department led by Additional Municipal Commissioner Vijay Singhal has been under fire for allowing tainted contractors to bag fresh contracts. Congress legislator Aslam Shaikh, who had first exposed the garbage transport scam in June last year, said, “There should be an inquiry by the Anti-Corruption Bureau into the garbage scam. Despite the CM ordering investigation, the BMC was brazenly backing tainted contractors. It looks like the CM’s word has no value. This firm has now been barred but there are other similar cases as well.”