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On August 10, 47-year-old Ramachandran, a contractor who has worked with the Chennai Corporation for over 15 years, filed a petition against the civic body in High Court. He alleged lack of transparency in the process of awarding tenders and his effort to expose this corruption was spurred by the fact that major road laying contracts were to be announced in five days.
"They were going to announce tenders for bus routes and storm water drains worth crores. And as a contractor who works largely on roads, I was aware that measures will be taken to give this work on to applicants favoured by the government and the corporation officials. So I decided to take a precautionary measure," says Ramachandran. According to contractors, the project to be given was massive and consisted of multiple packages worth Rs 20 crore each. Each package consisted a cluster of 100 bus route roads (BRR) or storm water drains (SWD). The budget of BRR was set at Rs 400 crore while SWD was set at Rs 390 crore. "The rest of us wouldnt stand a chance. They had a well-oiled mechanism to shut us out," he alleges.
Close to 70 Class A contractors who worked with the government were watching Ramachandrans battle carefully. While some contractors have benefited from this ‘biased’ system, most were victims who had not mustered the courage to speak up.
And two days later it became clear why, when Ramachandran withdrew his case hurriedly, despite the courts previous observations making it evident that justice was on his side.
"The corporation officials threatened me," he alleges. "They said that if I went on with the case, they would send the Tamil Nadu pollution control board to my tar factory and shut it down. If they did that, my whole livelihood would have been at stake. I took back the case and suffer silently with other contractors, as corruption rules over competence when giving out contracts," he adds.
So how do they suppress these contractors?
According to three contractors who spoke to TNM under the condition of anonymity, problems in applying for tenders began in 2014. John, a major contractor whose family has been taking up road laying contracts from the corporation for over 20 years, says that the current administration has alienated most contractors.
"After SP Velumani took over as Municipal Administration minister, associations were formed with select contractors who did the bidding of the minister, even as he used his own benami firms to usurp large tenders. There are close to 10 companies that dominate the scene right now. Three to four close to Velumani get all the contracts. The others who are part of the association receive a percentage of the contract to ensure they dont apply for it," he alleges.
According to contractors, former public work department officials and Arappor Iyakkam, which is an anti-corruption NGO, there are three ways in which the system is rigged.
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