Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Congress on Friday accused the 'Mahayuti' government in Maharashtra of granting some companies tenders of infrastructure projects in return for campaign finance donations, which could have cost the exchequer at least Rs 10,903 crore.
It alleged that the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Limited (MSRDC) diluted provisions to provide certain companies an advantage in the bidding process and garner projects.
Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh and party's Media and Publicity Department chairperson Pawan Khera said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari should be made answerable.
"The Mahayuti Sarkar in Maharashtra privileged certain companies in infra tenders in return for campaign finance donations, costing the taxpayer at least Rs 10,903 crores. Prepaid Chanda, post paid Dhandha!," Ramesh posted on 'X'.
Addressing a press conference, Khera cited that the bid values for the eight projects stood at Rs 20,990 crore while the "fair price" for the projects would have been Rs 10,087 crore and the excess price was estimated at Rs 10,903 crore.
Khera claimed that the entire nation is aware that BJP brought the electoral bonds scheme to tunnel funds. Eighteen companies which qualified for the projects in July 2023 donated in electoral bonds, he alleged.
"We have time and again highlighted how certain firms who donated to the BJP through the illegal and unconstitutional Electoral Bonds Scheme were given huge projects in lieu of buying electoral bonds. Perhaps, the biggest state which was duped by this 'chande ka dhanda', was Maharashtra. All this was done by upending numerous established standard rules," he claimed.
Emphasising that the MSRDC opened the price bid for various highway projects in Maharashtra like Virar-Alibaug Multimodal Corridor (MMC) and Pune Ring Road (PRR), he said the Corporation changed a rule that allows a bid to get up to two packages only by defining eight projects as tunnel projects with different qualification conditions.
"This was done to award most of the packages to a few entities. The MSRDC changed the pre-qualification criteria for these tunnels projects unlike its previous projects such as the 'Missing Link and Mumbai Nagpur' where the pre-qualification criteria for tunnel diameter and length were kept at 50% for diameter and 20% for length in convergence which is what NHAI, MoRTH, BRO, NHIDCL and others do," Khera said.
Claiming that the MSRDC decided to keep the pre-qualification criteria for tunnel diameter at 78 per cent, he alleged that it was done to exclude other bidders from the qualification and only three firms qualified for the requirements.
"Further, the tunnel length criteria were kept at just 6%, i.e. 250 metres which matches the favoured company's previous experience of 290 metres Mumbai Nagpur Expressway," he alleged.