Bureaucratic corruption at height , DDRC director tweaks terms of tender to favour chosen service provider

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, August 6, 2026

In what now appears to be an era of bureaucratic absolutism in the administration, the District Disability Rehabilitation (DDR) officer Sudhir Debbarma has willfully tweaked the terms and conditions of a tender floated on July 21 for hiring a vehicle for the Centre of which the DM (west) Dr Vishal Kumar is the ex officio chairman. This irregularity is being committed in the name of DM (west) even though Sudhir Debbarma’s basic purpose behind the tender tweaking is to favour his chosen service provider.

According to knowledgeable sources the finance department of the state government had issued a circular in November 2019 specifying that only ‘Scorpion’ vehicle of any variant, manufactured by the Mahindra company, can be hired by government departments from service providers on the basis of tender rates. No particular class of vehicles and its variants is supposed be mentioned for hiring. But strangely, in the tender floated on July 21 (second call) the DRDC officer Sudhir Debbarma had specified the ‘S11’ with power window and air-conditioner facility for the vehicle to be hired but in the terms and conditions made available from DDRC office it was specified that the vehicle to be hired ‘should be manufactured not earlier than 2023’. This was in gross violation not only of the finance department order but also against standard norms.

But significantly, Sudhir Debbarma proposed to hire a vehicle, possibly to be supplied by his favoured service provider, was manufactured in November 2022 and ‘not earlier than 2023’ as he had referred to in the terms and conditions. What appeared to be more bizarre is that he rejected a vehicle proposed to be supplied by another service provider that was manufactured in the year 2023 as asked for by him in the terms and conditions. Besides, when he had asked for a vehicle manufactured not earlier than 2023 he was already having it at his disposal on hired basis but he did not continue with this only to favour his chosen service provider in narrow interest.

The entire issue has generated tremendous public outrage as Sudhir Debbarma is now trying to persuade the DM (west) to put his signature on the work order. Sources said that a demand is being made so that Sudhir Debbarma hires a vehicle on the basis of stipulations made in the Delegation of Financial Power Rules (DFPR) 2019 framed and introduced by the finance department of the state government.

more news...