Maharashtra: Eknath Khadse’s Rs 1,000-cr tender scrapped

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has scrapped a controversial Rs 1,000-crore tender for using hologram technology on liquor bottles, which was approved by his Cabinet when Eknath Khadse was the excise minister. Accusations that the tender conditions and process were tailored to favour certain big players in the packaging industry prompted the Chief Minister to cancel the

tender, said sources. While the tender had been floated with an aim to check the supply and consumption of spurious liquor, senior bureaucrats had raised questions over the technology’s usefulness in meeting the objective, said sources. The Indian Express has learnt that Chandrasekhar Bavankule, who succeeded Khadse as the excise minister, felt “there was a need for some more study over the tender’s terms and conditions”. “It is essential to study the technology used in foreign countries. So it is advisable to scrap the current tendering process and start afresh,” he remarked while reviewing an official file on the tender process on August 18.

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When the file with the minister’s remarks was submitted to the Chief Minister, Fadnavis approved it the same day. When contacted, Fadnavis said, “The tender conditions weren’t proper. The technologies which won’t even be used were given high weightage in the qualification criterion… There were a few other complaints, too. So Bavankule decided to scrap it and call for a global tender instead.”

While the proposal for making it mandatory for liquor manufacturers to have a “track and trace” mechanism and a hologram on liquor bottles was initiated during the previous Congress-NCP government, it gathered steam during Khadse’s tenure. The plan was to engage firms in the packaging industry. The supplier, who would be awarded the work for five years, was required to develop and implement a “track and trace” software with a customer interface for “monitoring the journey of the beverage from the manufacturer to the final point of sale”.

The tender estimated an annual supply worth Rs 200 crore, or Rs 1,000 crore over five years. The plan was to authorise the supplier to recover this amount from the manufacturers.

Following the Cabinet’s approval, the home department under Fadnavis issued a government resolution granting the excise department a go-ahead for floating the tender. But other controversies surrounding Khadse, who had to step down as minister on June 4 following allegations of graft and impropriety, impacted the pace of work. The tender was eventually floated on June 18, by which time Khadse had quit and the excise portfolio was temporarily held by the Chief Minister himself.