IT News
Imphal, March 7:
The Human Rights Initiative (HRI) has submitted a memorandum to the Governor of Manipur, urging action against officials of the Manipur State Rural Roads Development Agency (MSRRDA) over alleged irregularities in implementing the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and the cancellation of PMGSY-III Batch-I of 2023-2024.
According to the memorandum, PMGSY is a government initiative aimed at providing all-weather roads to unconnected villages, launched in 2000 as part of a broader poverty reduction strategy. Under this scheme, 56 projects were sanctioned on March 7, 2024, as part of PMGSY-III Batch-I. As per the PMGSY Operational Manual, projects should be awarded within 71 days from the date of sanction, with the tendering process, including evaluations, completed within this timeframe. However, despite 189 days passing since the sanction date, MSRRDA only issued a Notice Inviting Tender (NIT) on September 12, 2024. The tenders were later canceled on December 11, 2024, without providing specific reasons.
Further inquiries revealed that the tenders were canceled following a complaint by the All Manipur Contractors’ Association Forum, which alleged that the tender inviting authority had manipulated the PMGSY Standard Bidding Documents (SBD) by adding extra clauses not aligned with the scheme’s guidelines. These modifications, the memorandum claimed, were designed to exclude local contractors, violating the fundamental principle of utilizing local materials and manpower.
The HRI pointed out that PMGSY guidelines do not permit states or implementing agencies to modify the SBD issued by the Ministry. By altering these documents, MSRRDA was accused of breaching standard norms, leading to the cancellation of tenders after intervention from the Government of Manipur. The memorandum argued that without the contractors’ association’s complaints and the subsequent government inquiry, the alleged manipulation might have gone unnoticed.
Despite the cancellation, the HRI insisted that simply annulling the NIT was insufficient, arguing that those responsible for manipulating the bidding process must be held accountable. The organization stressed that PMGSY is a time-sensitive project, and any delay in tendering could lead to higher costs, lower road quality, and financial losses for contractors who had already invested in the bidding process.
The memorandum further alleged multiple violations by MSRRDA in executing PMGSY projects, from the preparation of Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) to post-construction maintenance. It claimed that contractors often submitted significantly low bids, knowing they could later recover losses through unauthorized deviations in project costs. A review of financial records purportedly showed that many projects exceeded the permissible deviation limits without approval from the National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (NRIDA) or the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD). This raised concerns about the transparency of DPR preparation and whether proper tendering processes were followed when outsourcing DPR development to private firms.
Additionally, the memorandum cited violations in the monitoring and payment system for maintenance works. The Ministry had mandated the use of the EMARG system for inspecting and processing payments for five-year maintenance contracts. However, reports suggested that MSRRDA had failed to adhere to these guidelines, leading to irregular payments to contractors.
HRI laid down key demands, including holding officials accountable for violating PMGSY guidelines, investigating the manipulation of SBDs, and assessing the competency of MSRRDA officials in executing the scheme. The memorandum also called for transferring PMGSY implementation to another state engineering department, such as the Public Works Department (PWD), if MSRRDA was deemed incapable of adhering to the scheme’s guidelines.
