AP govt issues fresh notification

New government goofed up tender process, say observers

The state government today issued fresh notification inviting applicants for empanelment for the execution of Category-1 packages of irrigation works.

The state government's decision comes after the Andhra Pradesh High Court yesterday directed the state government to issue fresh notification to consider the cases of companies that were left out in the earlier tender process.

Senior state government officials are learnt to have met the high court officials earlier in the day before issuing the fresh notification.

The high court judgement on irrigation tenders is a big lesson to the leadership of the state government, which was riding high on its ambitious rural development plans without giving much thought on how it would be handling such a huge effort.

The Congress state government has publicly stated that it would invest close to Rs 45,000 crore in the irrigation sector over the next five years.

The fact that the government did not publicise through notification the relaxation of certain norms for prequalification purposes could potentially have led to investigations by the anti-corruption and vigilance departments.

"The government is lucky that the court has intervened; otherwise it could have led to more investigations and complications at a later stage," a senior government official said.

Questioning this very lapse, the division bench of Andhra Pradesh High Court had yesterday stayed the entire process of finalisation of tenders under category-1 (irrigation projects of a value between Rs 100 crore and Rs 150 crore).

The lapse is seen as being 'immature' and political observers wonder how such a silly administrative flaw, which has a direct bearing on the transparency of the tender process, had not been noticed by the chief secretary or the chief minister himself.

This, at a time when senior irrigation officials were of the opinion that none of the companies that were left out and had approached the courts would have been in the prequalified list, even after issuance of fresh notification on the relaxation of norms.

Without going into issues of integrity of the leadership or of the officials behind this episode, the court judgement seems to have highlighted a supposed weakness of chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who tends to depend more on officials and other subordinates even on sensitive administrative matters, political observers in Hyderabad believe.

"He should spend more time deepening his understanding on such processes and actively guiding them," feels a government official.

Senior government officials feel that chief secretary Mohan Kanda should be held equally responsible for the entire episode that has left the government with mud on its face. The government's failure to choose the right people and the right team for the job is also considered to be the cause for the present embarrassment.

The state advocate general's handling of the case has also come under scrutiny, who is said to have left the court hall even as the counsel for the petitioners were pleading for certain clarifications from the bench.

The Chief Justice is reported to have waited for close to 20 minutes to hear the government's version before pronouncing the quashing of contracts already awarded at that juncture.