Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government has begun cancelling tenders across multiple departments as part of a move aimed at reducing project estimate costs.
According to the report, contracts had been awarded in various departments ahead of the Assembly elections during a previous DMK regime, with commissions allegedly collected as advance payments in several cases. These details are now emerging gradually.
In response, tenders issued during a previous AIADMK administration in departments such as Public Works, Water Resources, Municipal Administration, Highways, Rural Development and the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department are being cancelled in phases.
Officials said more departments are expected to see cancellations soon, and the government believes the step will help bring down expenditure.
Finance department sources noted that in earlier DMK and AIADMK tenures, tenders were cancelled citing administrative procedure, after which fresh tenders saw project estimate values raised by 20% to 50%. With thousands of tenders now cancelled, they said re-tendering could potentially reduce estimate values by 10% to 20%.
