JP GUPTA
New Delhi: The move of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to initiate tendering process ,for setting up of IT infrastructure for disaster recovery at Hyderabad and O&M services for five years, has come under cloud of suspicion.
Allegations are being lavelled that certain officials in the AAI are favouring a particular IT firm in awarding the tender valued around Rs 100 crore. The requirement specifications for the work have also been tailor-made to suit the IT firm. “The officials are hand –in-glove with the MNC IT firm CISCO,” says official of a ‘Make in India’ IT firm.
Pointing out irregularities in tender specifications for this work, a Noida-based NGO has written a letter to the Chief Vigilance Officer of the AAI RS Bhatti, informing him about the efforts of a nexus in AAI in awarding Tender No AAI/CHQ/ITD/DR/IT/2019-20 to the firm they favour.
In the letter, it has been alleged that tender specification is completely designed for CISCO, which can be vetted by third party, it said. CISCO is managing complete tender and at the end tender order will go to SI who has quoted CISCO which is Tech Mahindra/Besil/Rail Tel.
It has also been alleged that many renowned and reputed OEM and vendors have been devoid of chance to participate in the bidding due to 100 per cent CISCO specifications. Moreover, turnover of the tender has been taken five times of tender value which is in contravention of AAI manual and CVC guidelines, which suggests 33 per cent of tender value.
Such move of the AAI is clear indication that it wants to deliberately keep Indian MSME out from the fray, the letter to the CVO said. It has also been said that because of only one OEM CISCO specifications, prices will be closed at around Rs 90-95 crore, whereas the actual value of this tender is around 7075 crore, if othr reputed OEM/bidder is allowed to participate.
It is also surprising that RA has not been activated for this bid whereas almost evry tender published by AAI comes with a RA mandatory clause.
