Briefly analyzes how government rules and regulations promote cartelization and emergence of crime syndicates.

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Politics of Syndicates in Government Contracting in India
Shantanu Basu
PM Modi in a recent speech accused the Trinamool Congress (TMC), and the
WB CM in particular, of promoting a ‘syndicate’ culture in WB. Today, Aug
20, 2016, the CM of WB publicizes her efforts to eradicate syndicates. A couple
of observations here on ‘syndicates’:
1. These operate across the world, even in Gujarat and Delhi
2. The difference between babu, neta and contractor vanished eons ago and
resurfaced as syndicates with their sponsorship – the price for non-compliance
may be fatal or permanent disabling.
3. These are convenient convergence of politics and bureaucrats, a given but
unstated proportionate share of all government contracts
4. The membership of syndicates never changes, it just that it changes its T-shirt
colors
5. Notwithstanding open ads on web sites, the final enlistment of government
contractors remains very opaque as does the allocation of supply orders to them
– it is common knowledge that contract-approving officers are often appointed
for extraneous considerations and, in reciprocity, budget allocations made to
that officers’ dept.
6. The tender opening ceremony is mostly hogwash
7. Right from color washing (of govt. buildings) to road/bridge contracts, more
than three-quarters of contractors enjoy babu-neta patronage
8. In all states, public works and procurement of stores in govt. depts. are got
cleared by contractors from the state finance depts. (for their concurrence and
budget allocation), again in a most opaque manner, often without much noting
on file
9. Cartels of contractors operate in each ministry/state dept. – the contracts are
shared by that pool of contractors, L1, L2 and L3, by turns or setting up newer
‘tenderers’ by permutation and combination amongst themselves
10. Architectural drawings of public projects often have their scope altered,
often with disastrous consequences. And engineering justification for expensive,
often needless, deviations are willingly agreed to, in most case, by the depts.
themselves, obviously kow-towing to their seniors

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11. Huge mobilization advances are allowed to several contractors, in large
projects like those of the Railways and NHAI, that instead of speeding up work,
often finds its way into more lucrative private projects being undertaken by the
same contractor or simply siphon off funds, the glacial judicial system being
their savior
12. Public works contractors frequently request the executing dept. for
payments to be made to third parties that are also regularly made. It’s just that
the recipient exists on paper and vanishes after receiving the payments;
warranties are damned since the contractor didn’t receive the payments, hence is
not liable.
13. March-end is the favorite for the neta-babu-contractor club. False
work/supply completed certificates are the norm to draw moneys from state
treasuries and invest them in fixed deposits/certificates of deposit in illegal bank
accounts outside the govt. account. Needless to add, payments from such
sources cannot be verified by any oversight agency.
14. Measurement books of public works, a pre-requisite for payment, are most
often prepared by contractors. If an honest engineer records he could pay with
his life; remember IOCL’s Manjunath in a similar situation?
15. Qualitative and quantitative checks are seldom mounted on public stores. If
some honest officer does try, the consequences are generally fatal.
And these are just few instances that I have come across in three decades of
service in India. While I must admit that I do sound pessimistic in many FB
posts of mine, my readers most of whom have not witnessed such organized
crime, would appreciate the causes of such pessimism. PM Modi said nothing
new of a phenomenon that has come to the forefront in election season in WB,
something that he himself is fully seized of as a long-serving CM of a cash-rich
state.
It’s just that the TMC’s organization is not as ‘disciplined’ as the Left Front that
successfully farmed out geographic areas, state depts./offices, commodities,
stores and contracts to their cadres and closely monitored it.
For the TMC it is like tomorrow does not exist and therein lays their problem
and public anger. Like all other aberrations in this nation, probably ‘syndicates’
too shall pass, the same way the ‘scam’ term vanished into oblivion post May-
2014!!!