Road contracts a scam, BJP’s B Company: Cong

New Delhi: Reviving the allegations that the ruling BJP has favoured companies that gave it donations through electoral bonds, Congress Friday said Maharashtra govt inflated the project costs and tailored the guidelines to provide Pune road construction contracts to two companies, calling it a scam of Rs 10,903 crore. Congress said the per km road construction was nearly doubled from the cost charged by NHAI and the state in other projects.AICC spokesman Pawan Khera called it "pre-paid chanda, post-paid dhandha", as he dubbed the scam as extortion and likened BJP as "B Company" akin to "D company". He said PM Narendra Modi, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union minister Nitin Gadkari should be made answerable for the alleged favouritism.When MSRDC opened the price bid for various highway projects, Khera said the rule was that one bidder would get a maximum of two packages, but two select companies were given four packages each. He claimed the pre-qualification criteria were changed to show tunnel work as a major work though it was less than 10% of the activity, except in one ring road project. He alleged the changes were done to exclude most bidders, barring the firms that were to be favoured. Congress said the actual project cost as per the NHAI benchmark price should have been Rs 10,087 crore, but govt paid Rs 20,990 crore. "It is a massive robbery and the future MVA govt will order a probe into it," Khera said. tnn New Delhi: Reviving the allegations that the ruling BJP has favoured companies that gave it donations through electoral bonds, Congress Friday said Maharashtra govt inflated the project costs and tailored the guidelines to provide Pune road construction contracts to two companies, calling it a scam of Rs 10,903 crore. Congress said the per km road construction was nearly doubled from the cost charged by NHAI and the state in other projects.AICC spokesman Pawan Khera called it "pre-paid chanda, post-paid dhandha", as he dubbed the scam as extortion and likened BJP as "B Company" akin to "D company". He said PM Narendra Modi, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union minister Nitin Gadkari should be made answerable for the alleged favouritism.When MSRDC opened the price bid for various highway projects, Khera said the rule was that one bidder would get a maximum of two packages, but two select companies were given four packages each. He claimed the pre-qualification criteria were changed to show tunnel work as a major work though it was less than 10% of the activity, except in one ring road project. He alleged the changes were done to exclude most bidders, barring the firms that were to be favoured. Congress said the actual project cost as per the NHAI benchmark price should have been Rs 10,087 crore, but govt paid Rs 20,990 crore. "It is a massive robbery and the future MVA govt will order a probe into it," Khera said. tnn