By. Firoz.T.Totanawala
The Bangalore Metro Reporter
TENDER SECRETS OF REGISTRATION DEPARTMENT
MANIPULATION IN AWARDING CONTRACT
Presently, the computer registration in the Registration department is run by CMS computers and ECIL since 2003. The contract was awarded by the then Inspector General of Registration D. Sathya Murthy by laying down tailor made tender conditions. Even though 27 reputed companies had bid for the tender, 25 companies were disqualified at the qualification level itself. All these companies were knocked out at the very first stage with no suitable or rational reason to justify their disqualification. Though there were many reputed and experienced companies in the bid, their Tenders were rejected by the Department with attributing silly and false reasons such as ‘Non- Responsive’, ‘Rejected’, ‘No relevant work experience’ etc. Interestingly, the then IGR & CS Mr. D.S. Murthy is from Andhra Pradesh and the ECIL which bagged the deal is also an AP Government company.
ECIL had quoted for only few districts and its bid was as low as Rs 8 per page while CMS quoted the minimum of Rs 52 and maximum of Rs 100 per page. Why ECIL did not quote for the Major districts of Bangalore is an understandable mystery. Shockingly, CMS remained the only company to have quoted for major districts and more shockingly, instead of calling for fresh tenders, the then IGR & CS awarded the contract to CMS. According to the rule, a contract cannot be awarded when there is only a single bidder but re-tendering has to take place. But, who cares, CMS bagged the contract in spite of being the single bidder. The contract for all the major districts was awarded to CMS at Rs. 30/- per page and ECIL bagged the contract for all minor districts at Rs. 25/- per page.
The work involved scanning of documents admitted for registration by the Sub Registrar, taking the photo and thumb impression of the parties, printing the registration details and certificate on the document and then to save the scanned image of the document in CD form. All this would not cost more than one rupee being the cost of the stationary and the operator’s cost. As the receipts and the endorsements had to be generated, the cost would be another rupee. The contract was awarded on BOT basis (Build-Operate-Transfer) for five years and the company had to provide the infrastructures like installing computer system, scanners, generators, tables, printers etc, the cost of which could be another rupee. Thus, the actual cost would come to around Rs 3 and allowing the profits for the investments etc, the entire cost of scanning and registering a document could not be more than Rs 5. And mind it, this is the cost of registering an entire document which has, on an average 10 pages.
But the rate awarded in the contract was exorbitant Rs 30/- per page that averages of Rs 300/- per document! This fee is collected from the registering public as service charges separately. Out of this Rs. 30/- per page, Rs. 14/- is retained by the Government and Rs. 16/- is awarded to the CMS. While the actual cost for the entire document averaging 10 pages is simply Rs 5/-, CMS earned Rs. 160/- per document. The rate of Rs 16 per page was further hiked to Rs 17.20 per page.
Forget about all these. As per the contract which was scheduled to end on 15th June, 2008, the department officials were required to then continue the registration for which they were given adequate training. They were capable of taking over the work which is also simple in nature. The system and other infrastructure provided by the company after the expiry of the contract were bound to become the property of the Government. Thus, from 16th June, 2008, the only difference would have been the presence of SR office staff before the computers instead of the operators of the CMS Company.
However, the CMS wanted to rake in many millions by getting the ‘concluded’ contract extended. They have, with their brute money, corrupted the entire system in the department. On an average over six lakh documents are registered in a year and there are equal numbers of copy applications. Even assuming 10 pages per document as the average, the company would have netted a minimum of 15 crores in a year and as the CMS had monopolized 80% of the works; its revenue would not be less than 12 crores. And what was its investment? As the company took up the computerisation in phases, the total cost would not have been more than two crores. But during the five years contract period, it had netted at least 40 crores and the arrangements continue.
Apparently, it is possible for the CMS only because of its staunch supporters in the department.
It is time somebody takes notice of this scam and punishes the guilty severely.
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