Red Mud Pond-2 Construction: Nalco Under Cloud Over Grant of Rs 225-Cr Tender

Bhubaneswar: The National Aluminium Company Limited (Nalco) has run into controversy over alleged lack of transparency and gross irregularities in grant of construction work worth over Rs 225 crore to a private company.

The leading central public sector undertaking has given work for ‘construction of red mud pond-2 at Damanjodi’ to Mythri Infrastructure and Mining India Private Limited with a quoted price of Rs 225.79 crore, raising doubts over not just the ‘inflated amount’ but also the process of selection.

Company sources said over a year ago eight parties submitted bids for evaluation of technical and financial pre-qualification criteria specified for the work. However, 6 of them were disqualified. “These organizations, including Odisha Construction Corporation Limited (a government of Odisha enterprise); NCC Limited; UBV Infrastructures Limited; HES Infra Private Limited; Raghava Constructions (India) Private Limited; and, Sri Raja Rajeswari Constructions (India) Private Limited, have proven credentials and executed big projects. But they were disqualified on the basis of purported technical grounds, which were never communicated to any of them. They were also not given an opportunity to clarify,” a source told Odisha Bytes.

Of the two, Mythri Infrastructure and Mining India Private Limited and M/s BSR Infratech India Ltd, that were allowed to participate in e-auction, the former was awarded the work on the basis of being L1. Mythri Infrastructure and Mining India Private Limited had previously bagged other projects of Nalco as well.

In a petition to Nalco authorities, one of the aggrieved parties has alleged that the price of the tender was compromised and rigged through an understanding between L1 and L2 bidders in active connivance with some Nalco officers. “One of the contractors quoted a price which was 50% less than the price quoted by L1 bidder in the price bid submitted by him prior to e-auction. But unfortunately other bidders were disqualified from participating in e-auction. Obviously this tender has resulted in a loss of about Rs 50 crore to Nalco,” the petition said.

“Even though there was no verbal or written appeal to Nalco from any of the contractors, Nalco has filed a caveat application against all disqualified contractors. It is an implausible and unprecedented act on the part of a PSU to indulge in such irregular activity as tenders for many works are regularly processed at any given time and Nalco has approached court in this matter only without provocation from any contractor,” it further said.

“The undue interest being shown by officers of Nalco themselves in order to protect the interest of L1 contractor just with a presumption any interested party may object to the manner in which gross irregularities were committed by them to help one contractor with vested interests which are detrimental to the interests of Nalco. This very action of Nalco, undue extraordinary interest shown by Nalco officers at the outcome of this work shall be a very valid reason for suspicion of foul play and malafide in the entire matter,” it pointed out, while appealing for an investigation into the matter.

Odisha Bytes contacted senior functionaries of Nalco for comments, but they refused to say anything on the matter. “I am not authorized to speak on this subject on behalf of the company,” said Chief Vigilance Officer Somnath Hansdah. Director (Project and Technical) Manasa Prasad Mishra said, “I am not associated with it. As such it is an internal matter of Nalco and we cannot discuss about it with the media.” Chairman-cum-Managing Director Sridhar Patra and Director (Production) Bijay Dash did not respond to our phone calls or messages.