Telangana’s ₹600 crore tender question remains in court
Sushee says its three bids were about ₹600 crore lower. The High Court has not decided whether the disqualification was valid or whether the difference represents a real saving.
The tender arithmetic remains before the court.
The Telangana government has a simple administrative problem dressed up as a highway tender: it has not yet explained why a bidder claiming to be about ₹600 crore cheaper was removed on a technicality the High Court is still examining.
The dispute concerns Hyderabad Growth Corridor Limited’s 81.15-km Radial Road-2, divided into three packages and planned to connect Kothwalguda/Budwel with NH-167N near Nacharam. Sushee Infra and Mining Ltd challenged its technical disqualification, saying its experience certificates lacked the required countersignature of a superintending engineer. Sushee’s counsel argued that the certificate was valid, that the requirement appeared in an annexure rather than the main tender condition, and that the company should have been allowed to clarify the defect.
The Telangana High Court on October 12 declined to halt the tender process immediately. It directed Sushee to implead the successful bidder and gave the respondents two weeks to file counters. The court left open the validity of the certificate and the status of the countersigning officer. That is a procedural order, not a clean chit for the government and not a finding that Sushee’s case is correct.
Sushee’s ₹600-crore figure is also a submission, not an established saving. The research does not contain the package-wise bids, the official comparative statement, the award documents or proof that Sushee would have won all three packages. Those are the receipts the Congress government in Telangana should publish before asking taxpayers to admire the tender process.
Separate allegations of threats and a 15% commission remain uncorroborated and should not be laundered into fact. The stronger question is already enough: why was a potentially cheaper bidder disqualified without the public being shown the rule, the arithmetic and the reason clarification was not sought? A government that cannot answer that is not displaying rigour. It is displaying paperwork with a budget line.