Fresh tenders for Mysore ring road project

Mysore: Sole tending for a Rs 219 crore project, planned under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), has led to its split and fresh tenders in Mysore.

The Centre had approved the Rs 219.03 crore project for the outer ring road for Mysore on February 16. A month later, the Karnataka government gave an administrative approval for the same. After its clearance, the Centre released the first instalment of Rs. 43.80 crore and the State government Rs. 5.475 crore as its share.

Following this, the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA), which has taken up the project, invited tenders for the execution of the work. Of the 13 firms that bought the tender documents, only four companies participated in the single package tender. The Technical Review Committee examined the tenders, but found three of them technically unqualified, resulting in their rejection, leaving only one eligible tenderer.

As the tender exceeded Rs 25 lakhs and was beyond the scope of approval of the MUDA, the lone tender was sent to the State government for consent. The government, on its part, concluded that eligibility of only one company would not be in the interest of the competitive tendering for such a major project and therefore opportunity should be created afresh for more companies to participate in the tender process.

Having come to this conclusion, it has asked the MUDA now to start the tender process afresh so that the process would be transparent. This has resulted in a delay of three months already and further delay is expected, as the entire process has to be taken up again.

Heeding to the advice the government, MUDA has begun the process afresh. It invited fresh tenders on September 18. As only one company was technically eligible in the previous tendering, it has split the project into four works this time.

Defending the MUDA decision and rejecting the allegations made in this regard by former Congress minister H Viswanath, the two commissioners of the MUDA, the executing authority, and the Mysore City Corporation, the nodal agency, in a joint statement said as this would attract more eligible tenders, even if one tender is rejected, the work can be entrusted to other bidders.

As four chosen bidders will be executing the project in four packages simultaneously, the project would be speeded up. Road works can be split into any number of packages and the MUDA decision to invite fresh tenders in a modified manner would not be in violation of JNNURM rules and regulations, they defended.

They also rejected the criticism of the former minister that the new tender process would be to the advantage of the tenderers.

“As no one knows who would participate in the tender, such a criticism was baseless and misleading,” the heads of the two local bodies said.