Karur Municipal Corporation has yet to issue work orders for sanitation, school-cleaning and dengue-control contracts that were approved by its council on September 28, despite bids being submitted at substantially lower rates and reportedly saving the civic body ₹1.51 crore. Contractors have alleged that Mayor Kavitha has delayed signing the council resolution register, while the mayor has attributed the delay to her absence from the corporation office due to ill health.
The contracts were floated through e-tendering during August and September for sanitation work in wards, cleaning services in government schools and dengue-control operations across the corporation’s four zones. The combined estimated value of the tenders was ₹5.06 crore.
The ward sanitation contract was estimated at ₹1.83 crore, calculated at ₹45.98 lakh per zone for five months. The government-school cleaning contract was also estimated at ₹1.83 crore, with ₹45.97 lakh allocated per zone for 10 months. The dengue-control work was estimated at ₹1.40 crore, or ₹35 lakh per zone for six months.
According to the report, competition among bidders resulted in the ward sanitation work being awarded at 25.99 per cent below the estimate. The school-cleaning and dengue-control contracts were reportedly taken at 31.98 per cent below the estimated value. The lower bids together created a direct saving of ₹1.51 crore for the municipal corporation, the report said.
The tender process has now become a question of administrative execution. Contractors quoted by Dinamalar alleged that the council had approved the tenders but that the new work orders had not been issued. They said the delay was allowing the previous contractor to continue carrying out the work and claimed that this could result in avoidable expenditure for the corporation.
The contractors also contrasted the current tender outcome with earlier bids for similar work, alleging that those contracts had been awarded after bids were submitted at only 0.03 per cent below the estimate. They attributed the larger savings in the current process to the use of transparent e-tendering. These claims were made by the contractors and were not independently substantiated in the report.
Mayor Kavitha, responding to the issue, said she had not visited the municipal corporation office for 10 days because of health problems. She said this was why she had not signed the resolution register. The report did not include a separate response from the municipal commissioner or details of any revised timeline for issuing the work orders.
The contracts cover services directly linked to everyday civic functioning, including neighbourhood sanitation, cleanliness in government schools and mosquito-control activity. The immediate administrative milestone is the signing of the council resolution and the subsequent issuance of work orders to the successful bidders. Until that process is completed, the status of the newly awarded contracts remains unresolved.
