Mumbai: After recently cancelling 400km of road concretisation contracts worth Rs5,800 crore, the BMC is now planning to issue new tenders for the same workinthenext 8-10 days.
The civic body will also increase the tender cost by 20% to attract contractors. It will also relax the defect liability period (DLP) which was 20% for 10 years. In the new tender, the BMC will keep a 20% bank guarantee for the next 10 years from the contractor, and every year 2% of the bank guarantee amount will be released to the contractor. According to civic officials, the bank guarantee will help in maintaining the condition of roads in Mumbai.
According to additional municipal commissioner (project) P Velrasu, the BMC will finish the entire tendering process in the next three weeks after the floating of tenders and the actual work will start from January 2023. In the last tender process, contractors werenot satisfied with the condition of 20% DLP money for 10 years. “We then found a solution of a 20% bank guarantee period,” he said.
Velarasu said that in past, it has been observed that contractors usually submit road construction and repair tenders below the estimated cost.
In such a situation if the BMC keeps 20% DLP then the total cost of the project will decrease up to 64%. In such a situation the road quality deteriorates. Apart from that, 20% of the amount gets blocked for 10 years so contractors don’t show an interest.
Recently, the BMC cancelled cement concretisation contracts worth Rs 5,800 crore. The tenders were issued on August 2, 2022, and the civic body scrapped these because it was not getting a good response from contractors
