MORE THAN two years after it was awarded, the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) contract commissioning M/s Rajdeep Infrastructure to set up 79 gantries, three footbridges and 500 road signages continues to make waves.
A private citizen, Amit Yadav, has filed a compliant with the Lokayukta alleging that the IMC lost out on potential income running into crores of rupees as a result of the terms of the contract and charging that the entire exercise was aimed at benefiting a particular outdoor advertiser.
He further charged the Corporation with dusting up old bids to award the contract for the construction of 150 bus shelters to a firm favoured by an influential Mayor-in-Council (MiC) member, as well as irregularities in awarding tenders for construction of dividers at MG and AB Roads, setting up signposts at MG Road and the construction of footbridges-cum-escalators also at MG and AB Roads.
In his complaint to the Lokayukta, Yadav charged M/s Rajdeep Infrastructure with violating contractual terms which forbid the firm from displaying any adverts on foot overbridges located outside the Collector’s office and on MG Road.
He also alleged that the contract had cheated the Corporation out of a potential revenue amounting to crores of rupees. While M/s Rajdeep Infrastructure will itself earn over Rs 100 crore in the 19-year period during which it will be in possession of the gantries, the firm will only pay Rs 2.16 crore to the corporation, or only a 50th of what it would earn.
He also alleged that the contract had cheated the Corporation out of a potential revenue amounting to crores of rupees. While M/s Rajdeep Infrastructure will itself earn over Rs 100 crore in the 19-year period during which it will be in possession of the gantries, the firm will only pay Rs 2.16 crore to the corporation, or only a 50th of what it would earn.