Contractor got an A+ just before bid

A day after the civic body disqualified a big-ticket road contractor, RP Shah (RPS) Infra projects Ltd, for concealing information while submitting its bid, more controversies have now come to light.

A day after the civic body disqualified a big-ticket road contractor, RP Shah (RPS) Infra projects Ltd, for concealing information while submitting its bid, more controversies have now come to light.

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It has now emerged that the contractor had been demoted by the civic body from 'A+' to 'A' for shoddy work on another project a few months back. However, it was mysteriously upgraded back to 'A+' a month before the tenders for the Rs 550 crore road contracts were floated.

RPS would not have been able to bid for the contract, had it remained in the 'A' category. Nitin Shah, owner, RPS, said that the demotion had been unjust.

Interestingly, while submitting its bid, RPS mentioned its public works department (PWD) gradation, where it is a 'Class one' contractor, thus making it eligible to submit the bid.

"I am not aware of the contractor being upgraded again. But, the contractor used his PWD gradation to submit bids. Hence, demotion or otherwise, we would have had to accept the PWD grades," said additional municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta.