The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry on Wednesday said the tender for the Delhi-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) project was yet to be finalised and that rules did not permit any discrimination, in response to news reports about a Chinese firm being selected and demands emerging that it be rejected.
The Ministry’s statement comes amid tensions between India and China following the deaths of 20 Indian Army personnel in clashes with the Chinese in Ladakh earlier this week.
“It is clarified that this is an Asian Development Bank funded package for design and construction of 5.6 km tunnel through tunnel boring machine and one RRTS station. Bids were invited on November 9, 2019, technical bids were opened on March 16, 2020,” the Ministry statement said.
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Five bids were received for the project of the National Capital Region Transport Corporation. The bidders were SKEC (Korea)+Tata, STEC (China), L&T (India), Afcons (India) and GulermakAgir (Turkey).
STEC had the lowest bid when the financial bids were opened on June 12. “The tender is under process and yet to be finalised. Please note that the ADB/World Bank/multi-lateral procurement guidelines do not allow discrimination among firms/countries,” the Ministry said.