Tired of contractors’ whimsical ways, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to slacken tender conditions for desilting works to make the process more competitive.
The civic body has slackened clauses about minimum work experience and financial capacity for the bidders. In addition to this, contractors now need not have their own desilting machinery to participate in the tender process.
The BMC had given desilting contracts for the period of two years —2015-16 and 2016-17. But, due to corruption exposed in the desilting scam, the civic body revoked the contracts and invited tenders again. However, contractors have bid as high as 300 per cent than the base price, which has forced the civic officials to scrap the entire process yet again. Fed up by this mess, they have now relaxed tender conditions for 41 desilting works so that more and more bidders can participate in the tendering.
According to civic officials, to ensure competitive bidding the minimum work experience for desilting works has been reduced to 20 per cent from the earlier 30 per cent. Moreover, to take part in the tender process, earlier the bidder needed to have a minimum financial capacity of 90 per cent in three years. But, he can now bid even if he has carried out 60 per cent works of the estimated tender amount in five years.
“We hope that by relaxing tender conditions about minimum work experience and financial capacity, the bidding for desilting works will be competitive,” said a senior civic official.
The estimated cost of 41 desilting works is Rs 125 crore, which include Rs 29 crore for the island city, Rs 55.50 crore for the eastern suburbs and 140.50 crore for the western suburbs.
The total length of major and minor nullahs and rivers in the city is about 650 km, of which 109 km are from island city, 230 km from eastern suburbs and 311 km from western suburbs.
About 8.02 lakh of silt is expected to be removed from them in 15 months. The contractors can bid for desilting works from January 12 to 25.
