The Puducherry chapter of the Builders’ Association of India has expressed its strong concern over the Public Works Department’s move to introduce bid capacity tendering for execution of work in the Union Territory.
A spokesperson of the Builders’ Association of India said that as many as 500 contractors from Puducherry had enlisted their names with the PWD, and the upper limit eligible for class I contractors was ₹20 crore. Most of the contractors enlisted with the PWD had more than 30 years of experience and had executed major work including construction of schools and overhead tanks in Puducherry.
But now, the Department had introduced a bid system of tendering which accords preference only to big contractors and companies from other States. The bid capacity system of tendering is also against the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) manual, which is the rule book of the Puducherry PWD.
“Though contractors from Puducherry are eligible for participating in work up to ₹20 crore without pre-qualification as per the CPWD manual, the Department has tweaked it to eliminate local contractors from the bidding system. As a result, the contractors have decided to boycott all work and stop ongoing works till their genuine demands are met by the PWD”, he said.
