The Ejipura flyover project in Koramangala, which is known for the inordinate delay in its construction, has got another shot at completion. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has invited bids for a tender worth ₹143 crore for the fourth time to complete the project.
Officials said earlier, tenders were cancelled for various issues, including price estimation. In March 2022, the State government cancelled the tender awarded to Simplex Infrastructure Ltd. for the construction of a flyover between Ejipura Main Road and Kendriya Sadan in Koramangala as per the directions of the High Court of Karnataka.
In 2022, while cancelling the tender given to Simplex, the Urban Development Department (UDD) had directed the BBMP to float a fresh tender for the remainder of the work within the project cost of ₹204 crore as per norms of the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement Act.
BBMP officials said that the new tender was floated after its engineers undertook a joint measurement and assessment exercise with the project consultant. “We have conducted an assessment of the work done so far. The remaining work should be completed by the new company. This new tender was called after new price adjustment clause was introduced,” an official said.
Construction of the 2.5-km-long flyover was taken up in May 2017 and the work was to be completed by November 2019. The company failed to complete the project even after the BBMP extended the deadline till December 2020 by imposing a penalty for the delay.
The BBMP had issued several warnings and even served two notices to the contractor for failure to adhere to the revised deadline. For more than a year, work on the flyover had come to a standstill. This prompted the local MLA and former Minister Ramalinga Reddy to stage a protest along with local residents, who were greatly inconvenienced by the incomplete work.
