Parties allege scope of work, project cost changed after L&T won contract

The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have fired their first salvo ahead of the Assembly elections by accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of corruption in the Shivaji memorial, being built off the coast of Mumbai.

The parties held a joint press conference, in which they referred to and quoted letters written by government officials highlighting alleged irregularities and seeking a special audit of the project. They said the scope of work and project cost were changed after the contract was awarded to Larsen and Toubro (L&T), which is a violation of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) guidelines.

The letters, which the Congress and NCP spokespersons released, were written by senior divisional accounts officials. The letters stated that in the original tender, the memorial was supposed to be 121.2 m tall with the statue being 83.2 m in length and sword at 38 m. “L&T had emerged as the lowest bidder with ₹3,826 crore. But then the scope of work was changed, with the statue size reduced to 75.2 m and sword size increased to 45.5 m. The cost of the project was reduced to ₹2,500 crore plus Goods and Services Tax.

Fresh tenders

“The government should have called for fresh tenders if they were changing the scope of work and the cost,” Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said, referring to a letter written to the executive engineer in July 2018. Mr. Sawant said one of the letters states that the agreement between the government and contractor should have been signed by the chief engineer, but is instead signed by the executive engineer.

Mr. Sawant also said a fresh letter written in February 2019 to the principal accountant general demanded a special audit of the project citing several irregularities. “This is the first part of the expose. We want the government to explain these letters. We will soon be revealing more papers in the scam,” NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said.

He said they will first approach the CVC, and if it does not take action, they will go to court. Mr. Malik also said Chandrakant Patil, State BJP president and Public Works Department Minister, was part of the “loot”.

‘False allegation’

However, Mr. Patil said all the requisite permissions had been taken for building the memorial. He said the Opposition was jealous that they never managed to execute the project during their tenure. “The allegation that the money was paid without a single brick being laid is false. Preliminary work on the monument was done for two to three months and no money has been given to the contractor yet,” he said.

He said the contract was finalised by a committee headed by the State Chief Secretary, which included the PWD secretary.