Almost two months after the Uttar Pradesh government rolled out its plans to fight the battle of the bulge in some of its major cities by sprucing up and strengthening their urban infrastructure according to international standards through the public-private partnership (PPP) mode, the scheme has literally been given a thumbs down by the developers.
The ambitious project, the integrated urban rejuvenation plan, had invited consultants to prepare integrated urban rejuvenation plans for the 8 cities of Agra, Aligarh, Meerut, Kanpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Ghaziabad and Lucknow. The consultant was to look into the individual dynamics of each of the eight towns in the state and prepare the integrated urban rejuvenation plan, which was to inter alia include the multi-modal transport system, including MRTS, LRTS and BRTS, parking facilities, automated multilevel car parking, infrastructure development, including water supply, sewage disposal, solid waste management, sanitation, drainage system, energy assessment and power generation, public convenience, transport, education, public health, tourism and hospitality, medical and hospitals, and many other things.
While the last date for submitting the bids was June 7, it was subsequently extended till June 27. However, despite the extension, not many consultants came forward for the project, resulting in the government annulling the entire bidding process and calling for fresh bids to be submitted by July 19. Speaking to FE, officials of Awas Bandhu, the housing and urban planning department of the state government said, ?Due to inadequate competition, the bidding process has been annulled. We had received only four tenders, that of SPAN Consultants, Srei Consultants, Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (IDFC) and Darashaw and Co. Out of these four, the bids by SPAN and Darashaw only met the requirements for the technical bids.?
That led to an inadequate competition between the two, as a result of which the entire process was cancelled and fresh tenders invited.
When contacted, Chairman, Awas Bandhu, SC Mishra refused to comment on the issue and stated, ?I will not say any thing about as it is against protocol. Senior officials only can comment on the issue.?
Repeated attempts to contact the principal secretary housing and urban planning, Harminder Raj Singh, too failed.It may be mentioned that the growing pressure on civic amenities in all these towns has already made living in them difficult. And with the demands on urban services set to multiply manifold in the next few decades, plans to strengthen the urban infrastructure in these cities as per international standards only can help them in planning to accommodate the anticipated growth in population, accompanied by the other components of growth, such as the growing traffic on the roads, need for water and sewage facilities, more power to meet the requirements, etc.
While the revised last date for submitting the bid proposals is now July 19, the technical bids would be opened on July 19 itself, their technical evaluation would take place on July 24 and 25 and the financial bids would be opened on July 28. The final issuance of the Letter of Award of Consultancy would be given by August 5.