more-in MADURAI A public interest litigation petition was filed before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday questioning why Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT), was left out of a tender process called by the Department of School Education for setting up smart classrooms and labs at government schools across the State. The petitioner, Ernest De Prakash Livingston of Madurai, said Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation, formed with the objective of supplying textbooks, was entrusted with the work of calling two tenders: one for establishing smart classrooms in 3,000 government primary and middle schools in rural areas, and the other for establishing high-tech labs in 3,090 high schools and 2,939 higher secondary schools. However, the Department of School Education, which was asked to finalise the tender, chose to leave out ELCOT, which was set up for the very purpose of implementing government’s e-governance initiatives, he said. It was alleged that not only ELCOT, but 50 companies present at a pre-bid meeting expressing their willingness to participate in the tender were left out. Three companies, Larsen and Toubro (L&T), Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) and Hewlett-Packard (HP) were given preference over the others and finalised for the bidding process. An online bidding process towards the same was scrapped to favour them, he said. Terming it a scam, the petitioner said the tender process was against the procedure laid down by a Central Vigilance Commission circular issued in 2012. The process was entrusted to a department which was not connected with the objective of the scheme, he said, adding the neighbouring States had involved such electronics corporations for government schemes. He sought a direction to stay the tender notification which was called on June 23. A Division Bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and N. Sathish Kumar adjourned the case for further hearing till August 24.

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