The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) on Wednesday awarded its largest-ever contract at ₹3,141.99 crore, handing over the letter of award for construction of three buildings of the new Common Central Secretariat to Larsen and Toubro Ltd. The CPWD opened the financial bids of three bidders — L&T, Tata Projects Ltd. and NCC Ltd. — on October 18. L&T was the only one to submit a bid below the estimate of ₹3,254 crore. The project includes construction of the three buildings.
In a tweet from its official Twitter handle, CPWD said it was a “proud moment for the department” when CPWD Director General Shailendra Sharma handed over the letter of award to L&T director and senior executive vice-president (buildings) M.V. Satish on Wednesday.
A senior CPWD official said this was the largest-ever contract for the construction agency.
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The three buildings are set to come up at the site of the old Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts’ campus, which will be demolished, becoming the first three of the proposed nine office buildings and one conference centre that will be the new Central Secretariat.
The CPWD had opened the financial bids of three bidders — L&T, Tata Projects Ltd. and NCC Ltd. — on October 18. L&T was the only one of the three to submit a bid below the CPWD’s estimated cost of ₹3,254 crore. The project includes construction of the three buildings, as well as maintenance for five years.
According to the CPWD’s notice inviting bids, out of the total estimated cost, Rs.2,126.02 crore would be the cost of the civil and horticulture component, Rs.994.51 crore for electrical and mechanical works and Rs.134.30 for operation and maintenance for five years.
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The total built-up area of the building would be 4.46 lakh square metres, including a basement of 1.23 lakh square metres, the CPWD notice said. Each building would have a ground floor, upper ground floor and six storeys, plus two basement levels.
“A typical floor layout in a Central Secretariat Building is formed by two main components i.e. cores and wings. Primary functioning component of this building is its wings since it consists of workplaces for the users; cores act as supporting components consisting of shared amenities and utilities,” the document said.
Each wing would be divided by a corridor into cabins and work halls, it said. Officers of the rank of secretaries, additional secretaries and joint secretaries with their private secretaries would be given cabins with personal toilets. On the other side of the corridor, the work halls would face the building’s internal courtyard and provide open plan desks for section officers and assistant secretaries and cubicles for deputy secretaries, directors and under secretaries, it said.
With the award of the tender, the CCS project became the third component of the larger Central Vista redevelopment plan to get underway, after the new Parliament building and Central Vista Avenue earlier this year.