On November 30, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches at 11 locations in the National Capital Region, including the residences of four top officials of the Commonwealth Games organising committee and close aides of Suresh Kalmadi. These raids were conducted following alleged discrepancies in awarding a Rs 107-crore contract for the time, scoring & result (TSR) equipment to Corgémont (Bern)-based Swiss Timing.
Business Standard has gained access to documents that the CBI may have found in their searches, which show how the whole TSR tender procedure was manipulated to suit the interests of just one company. These documents show that Swiss Timing was given the contract as it “fulfiled every criteria”, but this was done even before the tender was called.
In the expression of interest (EoI) prepared in March 2009, Lalit Bhanot, the organising committee secretary-general, had noted that “Only Swiss Timing-Omega meets all the criteria” of providing equipment for TSR. The EoI then said that “companies/manufacturers who fulfil the eligibility criteria may send their response”.
| GIVEN A HEAD START |
| * In EoI prepared in Mar ‘09, OC noted that only Swiss Timing-Omega met all the criteria |
| * At least two other firms were so discouraged by this that they did not even place bid |
| * Documents show criteria for eligibility in the EoI were altered to suit Swiss Timing |
| * One bidder axed as it didn’t have experience in 17 sports, but this wasn’t a pre-requisite |
Preference given to a company without evaluating the credentials of the others is not an established practice in awarding tenders. It is believed that at least two other companies — Colorado Time Systems of the US and Japan’s Seiko — were so discouraged that they did not participate in the tender.
Interestingly, the EoI issued in newspapers on March 23, 2009, did not mention that Swiss Timing was found most suitable. This bit of information was available in the EoI posted on the Delhi Commonwealth Games website, but was later removed. Even now, the website has a link to download this EoI and other related tenders, but is inactive.
Secondly, one of the conditions laid down in the EoI was that bidders should have provided TSR equipment to the “last three editions of the Olympic, Asian or Commonwealth Games”. The EoI had taken this, among other things, into consideration in finding Swiss Timing the most eligible company.
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However, at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, result equipment was provided by IBM, which sub-contracted it to MSL Software. At the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, Italian company DeltaTre did most of the TSR work. Finally, at the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games, the main contractor for TSR equipment was MSL. This clearly shows that Swiss Timing didn’t fulfil this criterion.
Realising its mistake, this condition was later scrapped. The new condition specified just one Commonwealth, Asian or Olympic Games. This suited Swiss Timing and it now became eligible to bid.
The tender for TSR equipment was out on October 1, 2009. The initial bid document stated: “The bidder must have experience of operating timing and scoring equipment and/or delivered local results systems/on-venue results systems in any of the previous Olympics, Asian or Commonwealth Games in the past five years.”
However, on October 3, this condition was changed in a letter which by V K Verma to Rahul Bhatnagar, joint secretary, ministry of sports. Objecting to “and/or” in the bid document, Verma wrote that the word “or” must be removed from the request for proposal and only “and” should remain.
This change was made to ensure that one company got the contract, as only Swiss Timing fulfilled the criteria.
The letter, which is available with Business Standard, doesn’t give any reason for the change. An official, who was directly involved, but wants to remain anonymous, said all these changes were made so that at the tender stage the conditions ensured that only one company, Swiss Timing, was able to meet the eligibility criteria.
Undeterred by officials rooting for Swiss Timing, Spain’s MSL applied for the contract, too. However, this was rejected at the pre-qualification stage, because two members of the tender committee — KUK Reddy and Surjit Lal — ruled that the contractor needed to have experience in providing equipment in all 17 sports.
This new position was contrary to the conditions laid out in the tender document, which did not specify anywhere that an applicant should have experience in all 17 sports. The interpretation, which was opposed to by the other two members of the tender committee, led to the disqualification of MSL.
Top-level sources in the sports ministry have confirmed to Business Standard that “there was infighting in the OC to get a particular company in”. Following this, an inquiry was ordered under Jarnail Singh, CEO of the organising committee. The findings were forwarded to the head of the vigilance department of the sports ministry, which has now given them to the Central Vigilance Commission.
When contacted, Singh said he provided CBI and other investigative agencies all the documents.
Swiss Timing, in an emailed response to Business Standard, clarified that “the contract was awarded after a transparent and standard procedure... as a result of a regular tender process managed by the organising committee”. It further stated that up until now, the company had not been contacted by any Indian investigative agency.
Meanwhile, finding discrepancies in awarding the contract, the CBI has booked Lalit Bhanot, secretary-general of the organising committee, and V K Verma, director-general, for alleged criminal conspiracy and cheating. Besides them, charges were also framed against R K Sacheti, joint director general (coordination) and Sangeeta Welingkar, who is said to be close to Suresh Kalmadi.