While Uttarakhand Cooperative Minister Dhan Singh Rawat is busy touring successful cooperatives across the country and showing a great desire to replicate them in his own state, a recalcitrant bureaucracy is not willing to help him fulfill his dream.
For instance, Additional Registrar of the cooperative society of Uttarakhand Ira Upreti has cancelled all the tenders for Video Conferencing Facility in cooperative banks in the state released by Uttarakhand State Cooperative Bank just a few days back. The decision was widely covered in the media.
Additional Registrar Ira Upreti and Uttarkhand State Cooperative Bank Managing Director Deepak Kumar were the members of the committee setup by State Registrar to oversee tendering process.
As per the government rules, any tender whose value is above twenty five lakhs can be done through e-tendering but the MD of the bank had not circulated this information through the E-channel medium as well as through the bank
There were complaints that tender forms were given to only those who were close to the Managing Director or Additional Registrar. Information was published in only one newspaper but as per the government rule it is compulsory to publish the information about any tender in at least two newspapers. This was a pre-planned move, complainants said.
As per the rules, the time gap in a tender notice should be at least three weeks between the date of publication and the last date of submission, however, the bank had published the notice on 12th January but forms were sold till 20th January, people complained.
Talking to this correspondent on the phone, Additional Registrar said after several complaints were received about irregularities in tendering process, all the tenders for the installation of Video conferencing facility have been cancelled. A fresh tendering process will soon be announced, she said.