The black-topped road works in the city by GHMC have overshot the deadline, and will take longer for completion, owing to the limited tender capacity of the contractors.
Delayed monsoon has come as a blessing in disguise for the corporation, though the sporadic showers have contributed their bit to the slow pace of road works. The GHMC has taken up periodic preventive maintenance of the BT roads this summer, to be completed before the onset of monsoon as stipulated by the government. Later, the deadline was extended to June 30.
Principal Secretary of Municipal Administration and Urban Development, Arvind Kumar, in a review meeting on Friday, extended the deadline for BT road works to October-end, and asked the officials to take up the work after monsoon.
As things stand now, the works are still at various stages of completion, with tenders still in progress for some stretches.
Of the total 52 stretches of road identified for periodic preventive maintenance with an estimate of ₹260 crore, work is on in 37 stretches, costing ₹190 crore.
Work is yet to be started on 11 stretches for which tenders have been finalised. Three works are at bid evaluation stage, and one is in the tender stage. Officials blame the delay on the limit on cost of work each contractor is permitted to do.
By the rulebook, the cost of works to be permitted by each contractor is calculated by a formula based on her/his annual turnover. Once a contractor reaches the limit, he will not be considered for fresh bids.
“Already we have exhausted the list of all the contractors by allotting them the road works. Unless they finish the ongoing work, they will not earn eligibility to bid for fresh works. We are having difficulty in finding contractors, and had to call for tenders repeatedly due to lack of response,” says Mohammed Ziauddin, Chief Engineer (Maintenance), GHMC.
Periodic preventive maintenance involves milling the existing road, and re-carpeting it afresh, and is ideally taken up for road stretches which have completed five years of existence. This is different from the patchwork and filling of potholes routinely done by GHMC where the roads are damaged due to vagaries of nature.
Works are also getting delayed due to sporadic rain either at the plant site or the work site, Mr. Ziauddin said.
