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Chandigarh education department cancels contract of outsourcing firm over failure to pay EPF
The firm, which had been shortlisted on November 10, 2022, has also been blacklisted as per an order issued by Chandigarh director school education on Thursday.
The UT education department has cancelled the contract offered to Asmi Industries of Industrial Area Phase 2, which had been shortlisted on the government-e-marketplace (GeM) portal for providing 87 counsellors to the department for a one year with permission to draw their salary from the firm.
The firm, which had been shortlisted on November 10, 2022, has also been blacklisted as per an order issued by UT director school education on Thursday.
The firm has claimed statutory dues such as employees provident fund (EPF) in respect of 87 counsellors, but hasn’t deposited these for the outsourced manpower.
The district education officer (DEO) had written four letters on January 24, February 20, March 6 and March 31 to deposit the due EPF. A show-cause notice was also sent on May 4 regarding the same and the firm had sought time till May 20, but no payments have been made yet.
As per the order, the same constitutes a breach on the terms of contract.
The contract awarded to the firm has been cancelled with a cancellation charge of 10% of the GeM value. Further, performance security of ₹12 lakh, which had been deposited with the department has also been forfeited. Officials verified that the security deposited is genuine.
The firm, Asmi Industries, has been blacklisted and debarred for participating in future tenders in school education department for a period of five years from the date of issuing these orders as per clause 2(7) of the Blacklisting Policy of the Chandigarh administration.
The order further adds that the sole proprietor Anurag Sharma might try to evade this blacklisting by changing the name of his firm or by registering a new firm with further partners. For this reason, all firms in which Sharma is the sole proprietor or firms in which he has any share as proprietor will also be blacklisted for five years.
Speaking about the same, director school education Harsuhinderpal Singh Brar said action was initiated for flouting the contract rules. “We will take legal opinion to see if this constitutes criminal action and will accordingly take this up with the police,” he said, adding that the department will take action against other such firms as well.
Meanwhile, the contract of the 87 teachers will be honoured which goes up to November this year and their salaries will be released through The Society for Promotion of IT in Chandigarh (SPIC). The proprietor of the firm Sharma remained unavailable for comments.
