In the list, firm in Uttarakhand tunnel collapse, others with a dodgy record

The company bought the first two lots of Rs 30 crore and Rs 15 crore in April and October 2019, respectively, while the third lot of Rs 10 crore was picked up in October 2022.

In June 2018, Navayuga Engineering signed a Rs 853.79-crore contract with the Centre to build the Silkyara Bend-Barkot tunnel on Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) mode. On November 12, 2023, a section of the tunnel caved in, trapping 41 workers who were eventually rescued more than a fortnight later with the help of rat-hole miners.

The other companies on this list include Ahmedabad’s Ranjit Buildcon, which purchased poll bonds for Rs 7 crore in January 2023 and Rs 2 crore in July 2023.

In April 2023, the Ahmedabad civic authority threatened to disqualify Ranjit Buildcon from future bidding after an inquiry into an overbridge collapse found that the company compromised with the quality of construction and concrete.

In 2021, a part of an under-construction overbridge by the company at Mumatpura, an upscale Ahmedabad neighbourhood, collapsed after a slab fell through. Earlier in 2007, another bridge project of the company suffered a mishap, leading to a death in Surat.

The list includes Telangana-based HES Infra Private Limited which purchased poll bonds for Rs 20 crore in April 2022 and another Rs 2 crore in November 2023.

In 2013, the company bagged a contract for canals to irrigate 40,050 hectares in Madhya Pradesh for Rs 238.33 crore in three years. In November 2022, the Madhya Pradesh government blacklisted the company, claiming that the delay in the work caused a loss of Rs 1,750 crore and compared it with an “act of sedition”.

“In its reply (to the show-cause notice), the contractor has mainly cited non-payment of dues, Covid-19 pandemic and lack of revised administrative approval as the reason for non-completion of the work… It is not acceptable, the contractual completion date is September 2016 and Covid 19 pandemic was reported in 2020,” said the order issued by the MP water resource department.

Pune-based BG Shirke Construction Technology Pvt Ltd bought bonds worth Rs 118 crore between January 2023 and January 2024.

In June 2022, an FIR was lodged against the company on charges of “death by negligence” after four persons died and two were injured in an elevator crash at the construction site of CIDCO mass housing project at Taloja in navi Mumbai. Earlier, in October 2018, four men fell to their death from a tower crane at a DDA construction site of the company.