Power board in dock over award of contract
Rakesh Lohumi
Tribune News Service

Shimla, March 28
The manner in which the State Electricity Board authorities have awarded the contract for painting 6,600 street light poles in the city at exorbitant rates without inviting open tenders has raised eyebrows.

According to rules, all works involving an expenditure of more than Rs 2 lakh are to be awarded by inviting open tenders. However, in this case, the contract was awarded on quotation basis at a lump sum rate of Rs 1,100 per pole. A novel scheme “to get structures aesthetically painted on sponsorship basis” was approved by the board on the recommendation of the superintending engineer, operation circle, by involving private companies like Jaypee Group and Ambuja Cement which could use the painted poles for the purpose of advertisement. Accordingly, a separate “HPSEB pole painting pool account” was opened in a bank to be jointly operated by the superintending engineer and senior executive engineer, division-I.

The financial implication of the scheme was worked out by taking the average cost of five different types of poles, the British type and tubular steel poles, of different sizes ranging from 8 m to 11 m, which came to Rs 1,400. The total cost of painting 6,600 poles worked out to Rs 92 lakh and, as such, tenders should have been invited. Even at the negotiated rate of Rs 1,100 per pole at which the work has been awarded, the contract is worth over Rs 72 lakh.

Local contractors, who came to know about the work only after award of the contract, alleged that codal formalities were not followed. They pointed out that the rate was very high as evident from comparison with the latest cost data of rural electrification corporation and the Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikarkan Yojna, the benchmarks, as per which rates varied from Rs 350 to Rs 450 for different types of poles.

Chairman of the board Subhash Negi maintained that it was not a deposit work and that representatives of private companies, which were providing funds, were associated while finalising the rate. The old poles required more labour and, as such, rate could be higher. The board was doing the job on behalf of the companies and, so far, only about Rs 10 lakh were available in the pool account. It was a new initiative to involve private parties in maintenance of infrastructure. Any procedural lapses would be taken care of and the balance work would be awarded after completing all formalities.

Another significant point was that in the normal course, works were handled by the concerned executive engineers in their respective jurisdictions. However, in this case, it has been assigned to executive engineer, division-I, under which there were about 1,600 poles and the rest 5,000 fell in the city division.