Bengaluru: Contracts for laying down the 18-km Metro line on the outer ring road (ORR) to be given after assessing financial capacity. The Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) has stated that contracts to be given to the lowest bidder based on financial competence.
This come after several media reports hinting that the contracts are split but work going to same bidder. There were question raised in terms of transparency in allocating contracts based on bidding value. It was earlier reported that the ORR work is split into three packages to speed up work.
Though financial bids for the project are yet to be opened by BMRCL, but several sources hinted that one company has quoted lowest bid in all the three packages. This raised doubts and questioned the mode of operation of BMRCL for ORR Metro work.
Managing director of BMRCL, Ajay Seth clarified that all the three packages have a number of technical capacity criterion that includes “bid capacity” and “liquidity”.
Seth while speaking to Economic Times said, “The financial bids of participating companies having adequate bid capacity and liquidity and meeting other technical criteria only are opened.”
Once the contract is given for first package, the bid capacity as well as liquidity for rest of two tenders will be evaluated. Seth said that due diligence will be followed while awarding the contract. He also added that one company getting due advantage is overstated.
As per records there were six firms who participated in the bidding process. These included Nagarjuna Construction Company, Sadbhav Engineering, IL&FS Engineering and Construction Company, Simplex Infrastructure, Simplex Infrastructure and ITD Cementa-tion India.
In technical rounds Sadbhav was disqualified with the remaining five companies now in race. It was IL&FS who ended up winning the bid with lowest quote. This was for the construction of 7-km elevated Metro line between Central Silk Board and Bellandur, comprising of four Metro stations Sources reveal that BMRCL is not issued letter of agreement (LoA)
By end of this month, financial bids of two other packages are likely to be opened.
BMRCL is already working with three companies who participated in the bidding. These are Simplex, IL&FS, ITD and NCC. These companies are part of project execution for one of the Metro project of 72-km Phase II network.
As per information ITD Cementation India has bagged four contracts, from BMRCL while Simplex has got two projects. NCC and IL& have got one each.
It is learnt that transport utility is not pleased with the performance of NCC and IL&FS who are the first ones to get contracts from Namma Metro. As per the agreements, both the companies were believed to conclude work on the Mysuru road (3.95-km) and Kanakapura road (6.52-km) by March 2018. The civil work, nonetheless, is likely to go on till mid-2019.
