The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Fresh charge against Naidu

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 09, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Fresh charge against Naidu

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, DEC. 8. The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) has levelled a fresh charge against the TDP president, N. Chandrababu Naidu, that he is attempting to stall funding of the projects by unleashing a campaign against the tenders process.

Speaking to the media on Wednesday, G. Muddukrishnama Naidu, V.Vasantha Kumar, S. Udaya Bhanu and E. Pratap Reddy said the TDP leader was "deliberately sullying'' the Government's image to make the funding agencies go back.

The Congress Government had adopted a widely accepted system of EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) and pre-qualification bids for shortlisting companies. In inviting tenders for 11 packages it had paid only Rs. 27 crores as mobilisation advance to the nine companies against bank guarantees for projects worth Rs. 5, 000 crores.

`TDP charge baseless'

That being the case, the TDP was absurdly campaigning that the corruption involved in the tenders was Rs. 10, 000 crores. The present Government had not even altered the earlier system of tender procurement or the process of selection. The court too had not faulted the system but only directed the Government to relax the rules to facilitate participation of more companies.

The previous Government, in turn, preferred the nomination method for awarding works involving more than Rs. 6,000 crores under schemes like Neeru-meeru and for the works contracted by the Water Users' Association and Education Committees or during the national and international games, they said.

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