No takers for Chhatrapati Shivaji in Arabian sea project, deadline for bids extended.

There are no takers for the project of a Chhatrapati Shivaji memorial in Arabian sea. In the last two years, the Maharashtra government has invited bids for the project management consultants (PMC) as many as four times. No one, however, seems interested in the Rs 2,000 crore project, as the latest deadline to submit the bid – October 12 – has also passed.

According to the sources, after the Canadian firm NORR backed out due to some misunderstanding over the agreement, the Maharashtra government invited bids for the fourth time on September 28. 'The deadline was October 12. Not a single consultant, however, has shown any interest in the final bidding process. We had no option but to extend the date to October 19. We hope someone comes forward. Otherwise, we will have to invite the bids again,' said a senior government official, requesting anonymity.

Commenting on the fiasco, a senior architect told dna that no international firm wants to participate in the bidding process as the government's tender documents have a lot of loopholes.

'According to the normal and model practice, the government has to first select the architect and its design, and then appoint the PMC for execution of the project. This methodology was exercised for the Dr BR Ambedkar memorial at Indu Mills in Dadar. I do not understand why the state government wants to follow a wrong and unilateral practice that might lead to malpractices, such as what happened in the case of Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi?' rued the architect.

NORR group, which has previously designed the famous Burj Khalifa and Atlantis-The Palm in the sea in Dubai, had earlier tied with Pentacle, the Indian firm that was the lowest bidder for the memorial project. It had quoted Rs 44 crore as consultancy fee. NORR had agreed to provide consultancy only for design. The government, however, wanted it to do that for the entire project.

'NORR gave a presentation and asked the government to increase the consultancy charges from Rs 44 crore to Rs 90 crore, but the government refused to do so. Now we are asking people to participate in the fresh bidding but the response is not exciting,' said a senior government official, requesting anonymity.

Vinayak Mete, the president of Shivaji Memorial Project Committee, however, assured that by the end of this month, the firm to undertake this ambitious project will be finalised. 'It is a big project and there are many obstacles, but we will surely overcome them. We are confident that the Shivaji memorial will be one of the grandest memorials in the world,' he said.

DNA