The State government has set in motion the second phase of the City Road Improvement Project (CRIP). Three roads converging at the Vattiyurkavu junction and the junction itself will be developed first in this phase.
The Kerala Road Fund Board, the Special Purpose Vehicle under the Public Works Department (PWD), has invited proposals from consultants to prepare the Detailed Project Report (DPR) and the engineering design for the work.
The consultant will also been tasked with assessing the financial viability of the project, official sources told The Hindu. The first phase, which is nearing completion, envisaged developing 42 km of road in the capital. It was executed in a public private partnership (PPP) mode, with a 15-year maintenance contract.
Stretches identified
The 12 km identified for development are the Sasthamangalam-Vattiyurkavu (4 km), Nettayam-Mukkola-Vazhayila-Vattiyurkavu (5 km) and Peroorkada-Mannamoola-Vattiyurkavu (3 km) stretches.
Besides geometric improvement and widening of roads, improvement of pedestrian facilities and bus bays; reconstruction of culverts, bridges, grade separators, road signs, and markings; shifting of services; provision of utility corridors; and planting of trees and shrubs, and landscaping will be taken up in the initial stage. The consultant will be asked to shift lamp posts, electric posts, telephone posts from the carriageway and utilise vacant areas by the roadside for parking.
The last date for submitting the Request for Proposal is October 11. The pre-bid meeting will be held on October 21 and the last date for submission of bids is October 31. Technical and financial proposals have to be submitted.
DPR in three months
The main conditions put forward is that the annual turnover of the consultancy firm from its operations in India in the past three years should be more than Rs.10 crore and that it should have undertaken financial viability analysis and project structuring of at least one PPP project in road sector during the last five years. The selected consultant will get three months for submitting the DPR.
The consultant need not carry out any traffic surveys, volume count surveys and traffic demand estimation since the alignment and the Right of Way for the three corridors have been finalised by the PWD. However, they will have to carry out turning movement surveys for junction design and improvement.
