Chandigarh gets more time to choose firm to build first flyover

CHANDIGARH: To bring global competition while selecting an experienced and competent company to construct the city’s first flyover at the Sector 29-31 roundabout, the engineering department of the UT administration has extended the bidding for the tender of the project for a month till May 17. The engineering department recently held a pre-bid meeting, where it listened to the queries of the bidders, although no changes in the tender related documents were made.

The ministry of road, transport and highways is funding the project and its technical committee will clear the technical and financial assessment of the project before the allotment of the project to the successful company. The work will be executed by the UT administration.

“We have extended the time period of bidding after holding the pre-bid meeting. Local as well as bidders from other states had participated in the meeting. Interested bidders raised some technical and infrastructure related issues. We decide to go with the current framework of the tender of the project and the same has been communicated to them too,” said an official dealing with the project.

Significantly, the ministry of road transport and highways of the central government has reduced the length of the city’s first flyover three times — it is now coming up on 1.2 km. The cost of the project is estimated to be Rs 183.74 crore. Initially, the flyover was prepared with the length of between 6.5km and 7km at a cost of Rs 800 crore. Later, it was reduced to 5km with cost of Rs 386 crore and finally in January, the length of the flyover was decided to be 1.2 km, which includes the ramps on its both sides