After tridents, no tender for ad project

KOLKATA: The controversy over trident lights is yet to die down, but the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has found itself in the eye of another storm of a similar nature, this time over alloting advertising rights on the median verges.
The KMC's civil engineering department, which is in charge of beautifying the median verges of some of the city's major thoroughfares, has decided to hand over the advertising rights over parts of Sarat Bose Road (from Hazra crossing to the AJC Bose Road intersection) and Rashbehari Avenue (from the Rashbehari Avenue-SP Mukherjee Road intersection to Chetla bridge) to a particular hoarding agency without inviting a tender.In case of the trident lights, too, no tender was invited by the civic officials.
The issue has created quite a flutter among a section of KMC officials. A senior official alleged that a city-based billboard agency was set to be favoured by a mayor-in-council member though a formal decision to award the advertising contract is yet to be taken. It will be taken at a meeting of the mayor-in-council in the near future, said the senior KMC official.
Mayor Sovan Chatterjee, however, defended the agency which is set to bag the contract for installation of monopoles at Sarat Bose Road and Rashbehari Avenue. "A particular agency provided us with the concept of beautification and maintenance of the median verge of the city's major thoroughfares by installing monopoles on these. That is why we have decided to take them into confidence while awarding the contract," Chatterjee said.
Questions are also being raised in the civic corridor on how the Sarat Bose Road project could be termed as "pilot" when the same work on Chittaranjan Avenue is already under way and the tender for installation of monopoles has been floated. A proposal drafted by a KMC joint commissioner itself contradicts the fact. It states that the agency which will be handed over the advertising rights at Sarat Bose Road and Rashbehari Avenue will have to quote the same rate as done by the highest bidder for the Chittaranjan Avenue beautification project - which evidently came first.
Dipankar De, chairman of the municipal accounts committee, came down heavily on the Trinamool Congress-run civic body for the alleged financial irregularities in the beautification project and the related advertising rights. "Like the trident lights, this beautification project will also be a financial mess. How can the civic top brass even plan to allot the installation of monopoles to a particular billboard agency without inviting a tender? How can they treat it as pilot project just to favour a particular billboard agency?" De complained.
"We can't support contracts being awarded to billboard agencies without tenders," said Congress councillor Mala Roy. "I fear these financial irregularities will mean huge financial losses for the KMC," she added.
Debasis Kumar, the local councillor and the MMiC, ruled out any financial irregularities in awarding advertising rights at Sarat Bose Road. "If anybody has doubts, that person can move court," he challenged.