BMC cancels tender for water rescue vehicles over link to Turkey company

Indian Express

2 days ago

THE BRIHANMUMBAI Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to scrap a tender for acquiring six remote-controlled life buoys or robotic water rescue vehicles after it discovered that the vendor that won the bid to supply it was ultimately sourcing it from a Turkey-based firm.
The civic body's move comes amid the recent conflict between India and Pakistan where the latter used drones supplied by Turkey to target India.
Confirming the development, a senior BMC official said, 'The tender was floated last year and the shortlisting of bidders took place between January and February. All the bidders had submitted details of their vendors in their quotation. Since India had good ties with Turkey back then, we went ahead to shortlist the vendor. However, owing to the recent tensions, we decided to take a relook at the tender and refloat it.'
The official said that while the supplier of the boat-like floating devices was shortlisted, the BMC had not issued any Letter of Approval (LoA) and therefore it had the legal right to roll the tender back.
'We shall be floating a new tender for acquiring the boats and we will also be exploring whether it is possible to have the products manufactured by India-based firms to propagate the Make-in-India campaign. It will also be cost-effective,' said the official.
In September last year, the BMC had floated the tender to acquire six rescue boats which were to be used by the Mumbai Fire Brigade for operations in the sea. The cost of each boat was pegged at Rs 9.62 lakh while the total size of the tender was pegged at Rs 64 lakh, inclusive of taxes.
Civic officials said that after the bidders submitted their responses, quotations were shortlisted. They said the shortlisted supplier was an Indian vendor who would acquire the product from Turkey based firm Maren Robotics and supply it to the civic body. In the website of Maren Robotics, the boats are branded as 'Maren Fasty — remote controlled and self propelled water rescue vehicle'.
Sources said that multiple civic bodies in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) have acquired these buoys from the same firm.
These boats were to be deployed at the Girgaon, Dadar, Juhu, Versova, Gorai and Aksa beaches. Civic officials said that each of these boats would have a carrying capacity of 200 kg while the maximum operating speed would be 18 km per hour —nearly four times more than the manual lifeboats that the civic body uses.