Government to negotiate with lowest bidder for Shivaji memorial

Mumbai: Grappling with higher than expected bid proposals for phase 1 of the Chhatrapati Shivaji memorial in the Arabian Sea, the Maharashtra government will now negotiate with the company that tabled the lowest bid amount.

The lowest tender that the government has received — Rs 3,826 crore, from Larsen & Toubro (L&T) — exceeds the estimated cost of phase 1 of the project by a whopping Rs 1,326 crore. The government has one last option — to go for re-bidding. But highly placed sources in Mantralay said that the government might change some specifications of the memorial to reduce the cost of the project.

Public works department minister Chandrakant Patil said that due to the high cost quoted by the lowest bidder, the government has referred the matter to a committee.

“A committee under chief secretary Sumit Mullick would discuss the issue with the company. The project cost will increase if the bid is accepted,” Mr Patil said.

When contacted, Mr Mullick said there has been no decision on the issue so far.

However, sources in the PWD said that the government would negotiate with the lowest bidder to reduce the cost of the project. “The bid was higher than the government’s expectation. Now the government is preparing to negotiate with the company on certain specifications of the memorial. The government might alter its design. But it will be cleared only when the negotiations take place. The last option could be to go for fresh tender,” an official in the PWD department said on condition of anonymity.

The official also add that the government would have to think twice before awarding the tender, as the total cost of the project would increase exponentially.

The PWD short-listed L&T for the project, as the firm’s was the lowest tender it had received. However, Reliance Infrastructure and Afcon Infrastructure were also in the bidding race. If the government finalises the tender, cost escalation would be inevitable.

The department short-listed L&T after scrutinising the tender papers. The Cabinet will give the final approval on the matter. The statue will be 309-feet taller than the Statue of Liberty and the memorial will host an exhibition on the Maratha king, an amphitheatre as well as a library.

In 2004, the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government announced that it would build a memorial to Chhatrapati Shivaji in the Arabian Sea. However, the project has been in limbo, owing to securing environmental permissions.