Finally Pune Municipal Corporations proposal for being “smart city’ is to be prepared by “McKinsey & company” that has been compared with a courtesan La Belle Otero. (Courtesan means a prostitute, especially one with wealthy or upper-class clients.) Yesterday Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) passed a proposal to appoint McKinsey and Company as consultant to prepare the smart city plan (SCP) to be submitted to Union government.
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| Photo Courtsey - https://upload.wikimedia.org/ |
Amount to be spent on this
proposal is whopping 2.5 crore rupees
and it may be the highest amount than any city covered under this scheme . SmartCities is Prime minister Narendra Modi’s dream concept and Pune is one of the
100 cities selected under this scheme.PMC has to now send proposal in this
regard and to prepare this proposal PMC
has appointed McKinsey as consultant.
Duff McDonald, who spent four
years researching “McKinsey and its Secret Influence on American Business” has
compared it with La Belle Otero, a prostitute who amassed a fortune from
Europe’s royalty at the turn of the 20th Century. She became one of the most
sought-after courtesans in the world. Kings, princes and dukes would pay
anything to sleep with her. “McKinsey’s fees are so high, they are
spiritually related,” McDonald says. “What customer who pays those fees will
ever admit that it wasn’t worth it? Do you get up the next day and go, ‘Wow
that was a waste of a million’?”
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| Photo courtsey - http://www.histoire-image.org/ |
It is not the case that McKinsey’s
record was always good, this is the company who has advised world famous telephone
company AT& T that mobile phones have no future. This is the company whose
former director Rajat Gupta was sentenced 2 years jail term for insider trading
by U.S. District Judge in New York .
Now let see how PMC officials
have played a trick to award this contract to McKinsey. The docket placed in
standing committee says that it was necessary to call tenders from the panel of
consultants finalized by central government. However that is not true. It is
fact that the Ministry of Urban Development has technically qualified a panel
of consulting firms and the States/UTs were at liberty to draw upon this panel.
However the States had also the option
of appointing a consulting firm outside the panel by following transparent and
fair Procedures .
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| Photo courtsey - http://gmatclub.com/ |
These firms had to be selected
under least cost selection (LCS) basis. In this case the Client has to select
the lowest proposal among those that passed the minimum technical score. And
here lies the trick. The scoring numbers had to be given by PMC officials and
off course McKinsey got highest numbers. PMC proposal in standing committee doesn’t
speak of any LCS base.
The cost awarded in this case is
exorbitant and may be the highest in India.
The state of Bihar has invited open
tenders and estimated cost of preparing proposals for 3 cities has been drawn to 40 lakh rupees for
each city, Punjab has estimated such 2
crore rupees for 3 cities , while Jaipur development authority has also estimated
this cost to the tune of 40 lakh rupees. However PMC being controversially
different and smart it will spend 2.5 crore rupees on same thing.
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| Photo Courtsey - https://upload.wikimedia.org/ |
Interestingly the core
infrastructure elements in a Smart City are, adequate water supply, Sanitation, solid waste management, efficient urban
mobility and public transport, affordable housing, e-Governance and health. And PMC has already spent crores
of rupees by appointing consultants on these issues. Then what different is McKinsey
going to suggest for Pune?.
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