Will BMC follow tender process: Bombay High Court

The Bombay high court has asked the civic body to file a reply on whether it would follow the tender process while giving contracts for fixing streetlights in the city. The court has given the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation two weeks to reply.

A division bench of Justice Manjulla Chellur and Justice M.S. Sonak was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) alleging that the BMC had not followed the tender procedure and directly gave the contract to a firm for replacement of the sodium vapour lights at Marine Drive with LED lights.

Darius Khambata, who appeared for the contractor, said the petitioner had not demanded that his client’s money be stopped, so what was his demand through the PIL.

The petitioner’s lawyer then said his client wanted an assurance from the BMC that in future while allotting contracts for streetlights, the civic body would follow the tender procedure. The court then directed the BMC to file its reply within two weeks on the argument.

In January 2015, the BMC had replaced the sodium vapour lamps with white LED lights as part of its `250 crore plan to switch all street lighting in the city to energy efficient lamps. The corporation claimed it would save over `80 crore on electricity bills.

However, it ran into trouble following remarks by Yuva Sena chief Aditya Thackeray that the white lights had “stolen the charm of the Queen’s Necklace”.

Later, in August 2015, the then Chief Justice Mohit Shah directed the civic body to replace white LED lights with yellow ones so that the “charm” of the Queen’s Necklace could be restored.