The Hindu Business Line : The way things work

At a recent public event where BHEL and NTPC were to sign transparency pact to usher in greater scrutiny in their tendering processes, a former ONGC chief who used to get his minister’s goat, recounted an instance exemplifying the kind of pressures that PSUs have to face while evaluating bids for any project.

“For a certain project, where financial bids were opened and the L1 (lowest bidder) was about to be awarded the project, I received a set of identical letters from five honourable MPs listing out the same set of reasons for not awarding the project to the L1 bidder. A few days later, when the L1’s representatives had come to meet me, I mentioned to him that their bid could be in jeopardy since these honourable MPs had written against awarding to project to their firm.”

That seemed to trigger some thoughts in the bidder’s mind. A couple of days later, says the former ONGC chief, he received five identical letters from the same set of MPs, this time waxing eloquence about the credentials of the L1 bidder and why the project should promptly be handed over to the firm.

He did not say what happened eventually, though, to the contract.

Winding down

Meeting up with old friends, and completing whatever little remains on the agenda in the next 10 weeks seems to be the New Year agenda of the United Progressive Alliance Government (UPA).

A senior cabinet minister who called a newsperson to thank him for a New Year greeting merely laughed when asked what the Government was planning to do in 2009. “Where is the time to start anything new or take up big ticket issues? We are now lo oking forward to catching up with friends and possibly do some small tinkering in fields where already some work has been done. You people should now look forward to chasing a new guy in the next six months.” He also mentioned something about the need for election funding. Yes, of course, how could we forget that?

‘Vinasha kale vipareeta buddhi’

The issue exercising the minds of the strategic thinkers in Delhi’s tiny community of so-called strategists is whether Pakistan has gone completely mad. “Why did they do it if there was nothing to be gained” was the subject of discussion last week at a closed door but informal meeting.

And after much debate and discussion — not to mention beer — the only conclusion was that the Pakis had gone bonkers. “The military could not have done it,” said one worthy, “because the targets had no military value.”

The Pakistani government could not have done it, it was said because “it doesn’t know whether it is coming or going.” The ISI could not have done it without the army’s knowledge, and the Laskhar-e-Taiba could not have done it without the ISI knowing.

So even if we know who did it, we don’t know why they did it. The debate ended with the pronouncement by the senior strategist present that Pakistan gets these fits from time to time — 1970, 1999 and now — and the only consistent explanation is the old Sanskrit saying, Vinasha kale vipareeta buddhi.

OUR DELHI BUREAU