CHANDIGARH: All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF)has alleged that the tendering process for privatization of power distribution in Chandigarh is being stage-managed and orchestrated by Chandigarh Administration and should be scrapped.
Shalinder Dubey Chairman AIPEF in its letter to the Prime Minister and others on Saturday has mentioned that the the sequence of events leaves no doubt that the tendering process is being stage-managed by the Chandigarh administration under the the direction of the union power ministry.
The UT Engineering Department had invited bids for the privatization of the department on November 9. As many as 17 intended bidders, including
Tata Power Company Limited, GMR Generation Asset Limited, and Adani Transmission Limited was issued requests for proposal (RFP) to
take part in the privatization process of the department.
In the case of privatization of power distribution of Chandigarh the pre-bid conference was held on 1st. December and on the same day
Punjab and Haryana High Court heard the petition of UT Power men union and issued a stay order. However, the minutes of the pre-bid meeting was not issued.
The stay order was vacated by Supreme Court on January 12 and UT Administration resumed the sale of tender documents (RFP). The Empowered Committee of the UT Administration in its meeting of January 19 decided to hold a second pre-bid conference on 22nd. January and a public notice in one newspaper was published on 22nd. The corrigendum stipulates that advance submission of queries is mandatory.
However, on the same day, the second pre-bid meeting was held at Chandigarh, and strangely majority of bidders were from cities outside Chandigarh were able to participate in a second pre-bid meeting at less than one day's notice.
AIPEFin its letter mentions that the entire exercise of en masse power sector privatization through SBDs needs to be scrapped as it is misplaced and unjustified. The Chandigarh incidents give sufficient ground to disband the High-Level Steering Committee. Shailendra Dubey said that the Chandigarh episode is a proven case of gross bungling in multi-crore tender and called upon the union government to scrap the privatization exercise in totality.