The tender was floated on August 2, nearly a month after the swearing in of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who in July had announced that he intended to make Mumbai free of potholes in the next two years.The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) announced on Tuesday that it was scrapping the Rs 5,800-crore tender that it had floated on August 2 for completing cement concretisation of 400 km of Mumbai’s roads to make the city free of potholes.
P Velrasu, additional municipal commissioner (Projects), said that a fresh tender for concretising the roads will be floated again in three weeks.
Civic officials said that seven respondents submitted their bids – one bidder for the island city, two for the eastern suburbs and four bidders for the western suburbs – which was considered inadequate response for awarding tenders.
The tender was floated on August 2, nearly a month after the swearing in of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who in July had announced that he intended to make Mumbai free of potholes in the next two years.
Civic officials attributed the cancellation mainly to the stringent eligibility criteria mentioned in the tenders for bidders. One of the primary criteria put restrictions on joint ventures of contractors. The criteria also stated that bidders should have experience in executing road works with the National Highways Authority of India. The clauses stated that while 80 per cent of the payment would be paid to the contractor after the completion of the work, the remaining 10 per cent would be paid throughout the Defect Liability Period, which was 10 years.
The BMC administration also mandated installation of QR code on the barricades used at the project site, through which the people of Mumbai would be able to access the status of the road works.
“The cost mentioned in the tender was prepared as per the market value of 2018. Since the area of work was huge and no joint venture was allowed, going with earlier market rates would affect the quality of work. Therefore, we have decided to cancel the tender and float a new one,” said an official.
After the tender was floated on August 2, the final date of bidding was initially decided to be in September. However, due to poor response from bidders, the deadline was extended multiple times.
“Due to the clauses, the number of eligible companies also became fewer… Therefore, we will be reworking some of the clauses before floating a new tender,” the official said.
Meanwhile, elected representatives said that cancelling such a high-priced tender within two months of floating it shows the BMC administration in poor light.
“Three months ago, the tender was floated by the administration. So, how can there be a price escalation in such a short time? There have been multiple instances when after a tender is floated, the eligibility criteria is changed by issuing a corrigendum, so that it benefits a particular lobby of contractors. The CM needs to intervene since the BMC is now being manned by a state-appointed administrator (municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal) and the elected representatives are not there to question the moves,” said Ravi Raja, ex-Congress corporator.
Rais Shaikh, legislator from Samajwadi Party and a former corporator, said that cancellation of the tender shows that the municipal commissioner was misleading the CM. “The cancellation of this tender shows the failure of the BMC. The civic chief was misleading the CM and the proposal of making Mumbai roads entirely free of potholes was completely impractical…,” he added.