End practice of verbal instructions by officials, consultants urge NHAI chief

NEW DELHI: Amid private consultants facing flak for preparing "poor quality" detailed project reports (DPRs) for highway projects, some of their engineers have flagged how they often "get verbal instructions" from officers concerned while preparing reports.
They have also pointed out that firms are ending up quoting prices that are too low and "unsustainable" to bag contracts. TOI has learnt that the issues were highlighted at an interaction of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) chairman Santosh Kumar Yadav with engineers of consulting firms at Indian Academy of Highway Engineers last week.
DPRs are critical for any infrastructure projects and any deficiency has serious repercussions, and even triggers the need for adding more works in any ongoing project. This pushes up project cost and delays completion as well.
Sources said the engineers have urged Yadav to end the practice of verbal instructions by officers. "They have said any instruction should be formal. At the end of the day, the consultancy firms and their engineers get blamed for anything that goes wrong or for deficiencies," said a source.
On the reasons for firms quoting very low prices for preparing DPRs, the engineers have pointed out that the mandatory condition to have at least three ongoing DPRs to get any supervision contract is forcing companies to bid at much lesser prices than the government estimate. This ensures they have some ongoing DPRs through the year.
Since a large number of highway projects are under construction, the road owning agencies engage consultants for supervision of ongoing projects.
"The price being quoted by consultancy firms now is similar to what it was in early 2000. So, there is a need to delink the condition of having ongoing DPRs to be eligible for applying for supervision of ongoing projects," said an engineer.
Union road transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has often slammed the DPR consultants for preparing poor quality reports and has also said that they are responsible for a large number of road accidents.