Kochi Metro Rail Limited’s own Vigilance wing has pulled up the agency for a slew of alleged omissions in leasing commercial spaces at 22 metro stations on the Aluva-M.G. Road-Thripunithura phase-one corridor, lapses that resulted in substantial revenue loss over the past few years.

The findings are damning in their detail. According to the Vigilance wing, the auctions were conducted without advertisements and in a manner it described as less transparent. Instead of working from data, the agency leaned on guesswork when setting prices.

Guesswork instead of data

Base rates for the spaces were not fixed on the basis of objective data. Investigators found that a trial-and-error method was adopted instead, a method that has no place in a public agency handling public assets.

The consequences were predictable. Changes in rates and other conditions, including the earnest money deposit, led prospective bidders to adopt a wait-and-see approach. Existing vendors were treated differently, and the Vigilance wing said a level playing field was missing.

“the basic principles of transparency, competition, fairness and elimination of discretion were not followed in letter and spirit.”

That line goes to the heart of the matter. Transparency, competition and fairness are not optional extras in a government-linked auction. They are the safeguards that stop insiders from picking winners and stop the public from losing money.

Single bidders and ignored alternatives

In most cases, there was only a single bidder. A single bidder in an auction is a warning sign, and the report suggests the agency did little to widen the field. The Vigilance wing also noted that e-auction or forward auction through the Government e-Marketplace, known as GeM, was not considered at all.

The absence of a standard operating procedure for conducting auctions, according to the findings, led to ad hoc practices and subjectivity. When no fixed rulebook exists, every officer effectively writes his or her own, and the process becomes impossible to audit.

Rules changed mid-game

The terms and conditions of the auction were relaxed midway through the process, and the public was never given notice. The earnest money deposit kept changing from one auction to another. Eventually, the agency decided not to collect it at all.

Changing the rules while the game is underway is one of the oldest tricks in the book. It favours whoever already knows the new rules, and it leaves everyone else guessing. The Vigilance wing’s findings suggest that is exactly what happened here.

Missing oversight and messy paperwork

The Vigilance wing also found that the auction committee did not include a finance member, in contravention of the provisions of the procurement manual. Oversight of public money without a finance representative at the table is a basic governance failure.

The paperwork was no better. Investigators pointed to several corrections, overwritings and omissions in the registration forms and in the auction register. Records that should be clean and verifiable instead carried marks that invite questions about who changed what, and why.

Each of these lapses on its own would demand an explanation. Taken together, they form a pattern: no fixed base rates, no standard procedure, no finance oversight, shifting terms and incomplete records. That pattern is what produced the revenue loss the Vigilance wing described.

What the Vigilance wing wants fixed

The recommendations are blunt. The Vigilance wing recommended that base rates be fixed on the basis of objective data. It also called for a consistent policy on auctioning spaces for hiring or advertising, to end the trial-and-error approach and remove confusion over the mode of auction and the procedure to follow.

On the method, the wing urged that a forward auction module of GeM, or its e-auction module, be considered after due preparation. It argued against outdated and less transparent options such as physical or hybrid auctions. Adequate publicity, including through the media, should be ensured so that ad hoc practices and subjectivity have nowhere to hide.

Other recommendations target the process itself. The agency should draw up a standard operating procedure for conducting auctions and include a finance member in the auction committee. Members of the committee should make a mandatory declaration of any conflict of interest. The wing also wants the auction or tender process continuously videographed or recorded through CCTV, with minutes prepared after every auction.

The accountability question

The Vigilance wing’s report is an internal finding, and it is a rare one. An agency’s own watchdog put these failures on paper and asked for the rules to be rebuilt. That is the first step. The next step is making sure the fixes are implemented and that the officials who ran these auctions answer for the losses.

Metro stations are public assets. Every commercial space left unlet on fair terms, or leased without open competition, is income that never reached the public purse. Passengers who pay for the metro deserve to know that the spaces built into their stations are being leased honestly.

The questions that follow are straightforward. Who approved the changes to the terms? Why was the earnest money deposit dropped entirely? Why was a finance member left out of the committee? Why were the registers allowed to carry overwritings? The Vigilance wing has asked the right questions in writing. The public is entitled to the answers.