Rs. 8-crore Tetra ‘Damm’ contract put on hold

The Rs. eight-crore Tetra communications system for the Hyderabad City Police, the contract for which was awarded to Icomm-Damm consortium, has been put on hold following allegations of irregularities in the tender process.

The decision comes in the wake of a report on the irregularities carried in these columns. In further bad news for the parties involved, one of the bidders for the project, Sanchar Tele-systems-EADS consortium, on Wednesday knocked on the doors of the State Government seeking a review of the entire tender process by an independent committee.

The State police had floated a tender for the ultra-modern Tetra communications system in August, 2010, to be installed in the Hyderabad Police Commissionerate. Sanchar-EADS, HCL-Motorola and Icomm-Damm, had filed bids for the project. Sanchar Tele-systems’ managing director Suresh Gupta submitted a memorandum, addressed to the Chief Minister, to special chief secretary Satyanarayana seeking a review of the tender process. In it, Sanchar-EADS consortium pointed out that the first technical and pre-qualification bids were spiked as Icomm-Damm couldn’t meet the criteria.

“A fresh tender was floated with diluted specifications and pre-qualification criteria to suit one bidder,’’  it alleged. This time too, the three bidders, including Sanchar-EADS, responded and their technical bids were opened in November, 2010. ‘’As per the tender, all the bidders were required to demonstrate their system features (which should meet the tender specifications) including integration with the existing Tetra system installed at the Cyberabad Commissionerate.

The demonstration was videographed for future reference. Sanchar-EADS could demonstrate all the features of the system as per the tender requirement including integration with existing Cyberabad tracking system,’’ the consortium explained. “Icomm-Damm did not bring the required equipment for demonstration but was still allowed to give a demo. Moreover, they did not demonstrate certain important features as required by the police,’’ it alleged.

The consortium further said the contract was awarded to Icomm-Damm in utter disregard of the technical committee’s report just because it had quoted the lowest commercial bid. “Ignoring the technical committee report.. is a clear violation of the tender norms,’’ the Sanchar group argued.

It sought a review of the tender process by an independent committee comprising experts and also urged the government to put on hold the contract awarded to Icomm-Domm till the panel submits its findings. Requesting the Chief Minister’s intervention, it also said video recordings be examined by the new committee to verify facts.

Source: www.expressbuzz.com
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