Nagpur:

The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (

) has awarded four cement concrete road works, including two on Friday, to RPS Infra Projects Private Limited even though the firm has been banned by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for poor quality of road works. The company is among six against whom BMC had registered an FIR with the police under section 420 of IPC last month.

The four works approved to RPS Infra are part of the Rs324 crore cement concrete road project phase-II. RPS Infra has also bagged a Rs240 crore cement concrete road widening project of Inner Ring Road from the state’s public works department (PWD) last year. Shockingly, the contract was obtained by a tender bid 21.50% below the estimated price.

BMC had banned RPS Infra last month and also registered an FIR with Azad Maidan police station, Mumbai. BMC has also reportedly started the process to blacklist the company along with five others in the Rs352 crore road repairing scam.

NMC had received a complaint against RPS Infra some days ago. The complainant had provided details, including TOI Mumbai’s reports of the scam about the involvement of RPS Infra in it. The anonymous complaint also alleged that political pressure had led to the company getting works in Mumbai as well as Nagpur.

However, on Friday, the standing committee led by Sudhir Raut approved work orders to the company for two of the 18 packages under Rs324 crore cement concrete road project. “Package-V worth Rs10.23 crore and VII of Rs14.74 crore was awarded to RPS Infra,” Raut said, denying receiving any complaint against RPS Infra.

NMC had earlier issued work orders of five packages, of which two packages — VI and VIII — worth Rs27.91 crore also went to RPS infra. Thus, RPS Infra has bagged four of the total seven packages. Total work order issued amounts to around Rs53 crore.

NMC’s cement concrete road project phase-I worth Rs123 crore is shrouded in controversies and facing inordinate delays. Learning lessons from this, NMC had decided to give work orders of only two packages to each company. However, the number was increased to four in the middle of the tendering process, raising eyebrows.

Raut said RPS Infra was also doing Inner Ring Road work, so they are hoping to get good quality work in NMC. “Work orders have been issued, so there will be no second thoughts,” he said.

Raut and NMC engineers present at a press conference after the standing committee meeting on Friday could not reply when asked whether RPS Infra was registered with NMC, and whether it hid the case against it at BMC while participating in tendering process.

Chief engineer Ulhas Debadwar said any company can be stopped from participating in tenders in case there is official communication from the government. “We have not received any official letter from the government against RPS Infra.”