ONGC investigates Deep gas tender award
ONGC’s chief vigilance officer Dr.
Akhilesh Kumar Ambasht received an anonymous complaint on November 17 accusing Ahmedabad-based Deep Industries of misleading ONGC. Under scrutiny is a Rs278.19cr ($46m) ONGC contract to hire five gas dehydration units at its Rajahmundry asset for three years, which sole bidder Deep announced it had won on June 29.
Questions are being raised about the authenticity of the qualifying experience cited by Deep about its technical collaborator Texas-based Croft Production Systems Inc. ONGC’s tender specified that the bidder or technical collaborator should prove experience providing operations and maintenance services for gas dehydration units for at least two of the last five years.
To fulfill this, Deep submitted alongside its bid a contract showing that Oklahoma-based General Minerals Corporation LLC had hired Croft for such services on January 14, 2011. So far so good.
Under the scanner now is that the agreement and job completion certificate was signed by General Minerals president Kris Agrawal – who by strange coincidence also set up Deep affiliate company Coal Gas Mart in 2001, which operates CBM blocks in the US. Another bizarre coincidence which the anonymous complainant finds suspicious is that the registered office address of General Minerals is 4133, North Lincoln Boulevard, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (USA).
This is the same as address as Deep’s US office.
