Official tender documents submitted for an Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded water supply project in Khulna were falsified and later confirmed as tampered with by the issuing authority, according to records reviewed by TIMES of Bangladesh.
The manipulation involved altered experience certificates submitted by a joint venture between China Construction Second Engineering Bureau Limited and RFL Plastics Limited. The consortium failed to meet mandatory eligibility criteria, yet its bid remained under consideration. The alleged forgery now threatens to derail a project that is critical to Khulna’s access to safe drinking water.
The verified falsification relates to international tenders for Packages 1, 2 and 5 of the Khulna Water Supply Project (Phase-2), which is jointly implemented by Khulna WASA and the government of Bangladesh.
Of the three tenders submitted by the joint venture, two were declared technically and financially responsive by the WASA Tender Evaluation Committee, and their financial proposals were opened in the presence of bidders. The technical evaluation of the remaining tender is still ongoing.
The China Construction Second Engineering Bureau Limited–RFL Plastics Limited Joint Venture (CCSEB-RPL JV) emerged as the lowest bidder for both Package 2 and Package 5.
The seven-member Tender Evaluation Committee was led by Jhumur Bala, deputy managing director of Khulna WASA.
Project central to Khulna’s water crisis
Phase-2 of the Khulna Water Supply Project lies at the heart of the city’s prolonged water crisis. The project, with an estimated cost of Tk2,598 crore, is designed to bring additional water from the Madhumati River and expand treatment capacity to 130 million litres per day.
The plan includes storing 115 million litres of treated water to manage dry-season shortages. It also proposes installing 75 high-capacity pumps to extract between 50 million and 100 million litres of groundwater daily, in an effort to narrow the city’s persistent supply gap.
How the forgery was detected
The altered certificates submitted by the joint venture were used to demonstrate eligibility in an ADB-funded international tender, where strict documentation and verification safeguards are required.
In a statement to TIMES, ADB said all projects it funds are governed by applicable procurement rules and regulations. The bank added that its project team is consulting with the executing agency and other relevant specialists to assess the issues raised.
The authenticity of one of the certificates was challenged during evaluation. This prompted the Khulna WASA Tender Evaluation Committee to seek verification from Dhaka WASA Executive Engineer Ramayswer Das, who was named as the issuing authority on the document.
Verification records show that Ramayswer Das categorically confirmed the certificate submitted to Khulna WASA was not genuine. He said the document he originally issued had been tampered with to inflate the contractor’s experience. This, he said, conclusively established that the tender file contained falsified records.
Legal consequences
Under Bangladeshi law, the submission or use of forged documents in public procurement is a criminal offence. It is punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment and fines.
The Public Procurement Act and Rules also allow authorities to cancel tenders and blacklist firms involved in document falsification for several years. In donor-funded projects, such breaches can also trigger international sanctions, including debarment, further amplifying the legal and reputational consequences.
The falsified certificate was submitted for a package covering the construction of a treated water transmission main with a two-year operation and maintenance component. Under international procurement rules, such a breach should have led to the bid’s outright rejection and the immediate activation of enforcement safeguards.
Inflated experience claims
Tender documents for Package 2 show that eligibility required bidders to have experience in the construction of 20 production wells, each with a diameter of 150 millimetres or more, under a single contract.
Package 5 tender documents show that eligibility required bidders to have installed and commissioned at least 5 kilometres of water supply network under a single contract, with pipe diameters of 400 millimetres or above, using horizontal directional drilling or pipe-jacking methods.
Project records from Dhaka WASA, cited by the joint venture, show that the actual work involved the construction of 10 deep tube wells (DTW) with rising mains (RS joint) and boundary walls, and did not include construction of DTWs with variable frequency drives (VFD).
The same records also show that the actual work involved 2,865 metres of open-cut installation and only 1,258 metres using horizontal directional drilling for 400 millimetre pipes – well below the eligibility threshold.
However, the submitted certificate inflated the drilling length to 5,258 metres, according to documents reviewed by this news outlet.
Despite the documented falsification and independent verification confirming tampering, the tender process continued. The consortium remained classified as responsive, raising serious questions about the enforcement of procurement safeguards in an internationally financed project.
Official reactions
Dhaka WASA Executive Engineer Ramayswer Das acknowledged the forgery to TIMES. He said Khulna WASA had informed his office of the matter by email.
He described it as a serious irregularity in the government procurement process and said he had learned that the tender would be cancelled. He also said Dhaka WASA would take action against the company, including blacklisting of the CCSEB-RPL JV.
RFL Plastics Limited’s parent company, Pran-RFL Group, denied submitting any forged documents.
The group told TIMES that it did not submit fake documents in the tender and claimed that, as a large business conglomerate, it often faces intense competition. It suggested that someone may have fabricated fake documents and submitted them with the tender to harm the group.
Khulna WASA authorities rejected that possibility.
Managing Director Muhammad Kamruzzaman said he was appointed to his position only recently, after the tender process had been completed. He said the alleged irregularities are being examined and that necessary action would be taken following the inquiry.
A city running dry
Beyond the tender irregularities, the consequences of delay are severe. Khulna’s long-running water crisis gives the project an urgency that leaves little room for procedural failure.
According to Khulna WASA data, the city needs 240 million litres of water a day. About 99 percent of this demand is met through groundwater extraction. This system breaks down every dry season as water tables fall.
To reduce this dependence, Khulna WASA launched the water supply project in 2011.
Phase-1, approved by ECNEC in 2011 with financing from Jica and ADB, began physical work in 2015 after prolonged land acquisition. It was completed in June 2018.
That phase brought a 33-kilometre pipeline from the Madhumati River, a 110-million-litre-per-day treatment plant and a 77.8-million-litre reservoir serving 45,000 households.
Operational data, however, show repeated dry-season failures. High salinity often makes river water unusable, forcing WASA back to groundwater and leaving many customers without regular supply.
What Phase-2 aims to fix
Phase-2 was designed as a permanent solution to stabilise water supply and expand coverage across Khulna.
The revised project cost is Tk 2,598 crore. Of this, Tk 1,821 crore will be financed by ADB and Tk 776 crore by the government. It was approved by ECNEC on 17 September 2025, after the cost was revised for the third time.
Khulna WASA invited tenders on June 30 and opened technical bids on September 25.
The plan includes 258 kilometres of new distribution pipelines, metered connections for 25,800 households, four reservoirs and four overhead tanks.
It will raise the Samantasena treatment plant’s capacity from 110 million to 135 million litres per day. It will also add a 38.5-million-litre reservoir at the site, expand the Afil Gate plant from 5.5 million to 20 million litres per day, and build a new pump station at Mollahat.
