With reference to the news report ‘Corruption is being carried out on a large scale, it is a big racket’ published on July 2, we are giving below our detailed clarification
With reference to the news report ‘Corruption is being carried out on a large scale, it is a big racket’ published on July 2, we are giving below our detailed clarification:
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1 Proposed awarding of tender for Sale of Scrap:
>> The decision to appoint the auctioneer for sale of scrap has not been finalised as yet. The decision of appointment in such cases is taken by the Corporation Board and the agenda for the same is not yet placed before the Corporation Board.
>> As regards the allegation on allocation of business, the allocation principle has been mentioned in the tender document as below:
CLAUSE E1 Award of Contract “Tender will be allotted to the first lowest rate and second, third, fourth... bidders will have to match the rates with L1. In case the business is allotted to two or more bidders they will have to match the rate with first lowest bidder and if the second and above bidders refused to match the rate, 100% business will be allotted to first lowest bidder. It’s the discretion of MSRTC to decide whether to select one or more sources to fulfil its requirement.”
>> The tender in question is not of Rs 350 crore as published. The average sale of scrap for last five years is approx. Rs 70 crore.
>> The proposal is prepared as per the Government / Corporation’s guidelines for consideration of the Board for which the final decision is still awaited.
2 Unauthorised use of additional space by the commercial licensees:
Security & Vigilance Depart-ment of the Corporation has submitted a preliminary report dated 29th June, 2015 about excess utilisation of commercial space by the Licensees amounting to R47.56 crore all over Maharashtra. The amount of Rs 47.56 crore mentioned in this report needs to be verified since the amount worked out is not as per the procedure. There are inherent lacunae in the report submitted, which warrants further scrutiny and is being done.
It is pertinent to note that the detection of unauthorised use of additional space is one of the responsibilities of the Security Officer/Security Supervisor besides the operational officers. However, no such detection was ever reported by the concerned Security Officer/Security Supervisors. Thus, responsibility of Security and Vigilance personnel and the other field level officers is being examined, based on which appropriate actions will be initiated.
MSRTC has laid down a procedure for commercial establishment, which enumerates the sanction of additional space if required by the Licensee. To ascertain the facts of unauthorized utilization of additional space by the Commercial Establishment Licensees as mentioned in the report, it needs to be verified and authenticated at the divisional level, only then we can initiate action lest it leads to litigation.
3 Missing stock of printed tickets:
In the year 2009-10, MSRTC had adopted the system of issuing of tickets through Electronic Ticket Issuing Machine (ETIM) in a phased manner. However, considering the possibility of failure of ETI Machines for technical reasons on line, the system of issue of printed tickets is also being followed simultaneously.
The stock taking of the printed tickets with various divisions and depots are required to be maintained vide the detailed instructions and procedure enumerated and is being done generally. However, certain division/depots have not done the process of reconciling of the ticket stocks. This was pointed out in the report of the Vigilance and Security dept.
The vigilance report submitted was immediately acted upon. A letter No. 186, dated May 19, 2015, was issued asking field officers to check & verify the ticket stock at depot and divisional level and to submit report of concerned responsible staff for disciplinary action.
It was found that as against the amount of missing ticket stock amounting Rs 84 lakh claimed in the Vigilance report the actual missing ticket stock is Rs 33 lakh. Disciplinary action was also initiated. Besides, the stock in dummy ticket tray has not been accounted for, thus remaining amount of Rs 33 lakh will come down further.
4 Cases against conductors:
50,000 cases of bungling by the conductors as reported in security report is not true. In fact, only 2,240 cases of pilferage have been detected during 2014-15. There is no question of irregularities leading to loss to the Corporation as mentioned in the said report.
- Asst Public Relations Officer, MSRTC