By our Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, Oct 8: Former Assam Electricity Grid Corporation Limited (AEGCL) independent director Avijit Mazumdar has brought to notice that AEGCL has given a Rs 100-crore contract to a Chinese firm, Jiangsu Jingke Smart Electrical Co. Ltd., through a local contractor without proper tender notice or without allowing any other company to bid for the same, at Sopur in Assam.
Talking to newsmen in the city yesterday, Mazumdar said: “It all started from a land dispute at the given site where the proposed AIS (air insulated substation) was to be set up. The AEGCL had put up a tender to set up an AIS substation at Sopur. However, a land dispute occurred at the site wherein a party claimed the land to be theirs even when the first party had bought the land legally. With proper verification, the AEGCL scrapped the first AIS tender without any prior notice and gave the Rs 100-crore contract to Chinese firm, Jiangsu Jingke Smart Electrical, to set up a GIS (Gas Insulated substation) which requires much less land than an AIS.
The problem, according to Mazumdar, is that no prior tender was floated for a GIS substation and how can the corporation set up a substation or for that matter give a contract to a Chinese firm without even proper process and tender. “As the country is heading for more self-sustence without relying on foreign country for our development this decision takes the country back a couple of years in this field. Even the Chinese company website has not mentioned anything regarding the 220/132/33 KV Sopur project and the only deals in India mentioned are the ones in Gujrat and Tamil du but no mention of the Assam project, even the AEGCL website has just a mention of the project in 220/130/33 kv project, but no details of the project are available on their website. This really points out that something is not right regarding the contract,” he said.
As Chi has blocked an tributary to the river Brahmaputra which will lead to less water flow into the northeastern states and at the current political situation trade and commerce between the two countries could come to a complete halt with respect to the looming border situations and that in turn could hamper the project in question as Chi might not agree to send spares system engineers and a lot of other things regarding the project, he said.