The Uttar Pradesh government has broadened its perspective on the ambitious 8-lane Ganga Expressway from Greater Noida to Balia to making it possible for Indian companies to participate. In its revised request for qualification (RFQ) document, it has taken exception to the clauses to allow competitive bidding, senior officials told FE on conditions of anonymity.
It is to be noted that the government is trying to avoid any Nandigram-like backlash by making clear the land acquisition for developmental projects will be minimal and that the real owners of the land will be made stakeholders. The government is working out modalities on whether making them stakeholders or provide them with commercial spaces along the land parcels.
According to sources, the government will also ensure that land grabbers are kept at bay. Land holding records will be checked and all those who have bought land after the project will be identified. The 1,047-km project, which would be built on the public private partnership (PPP) model, would run along the left side of river Ganga and is slated to provide high-speed direct connectivity from the western to the eastern part of the state.
Interestingly, the diluting of the criteria comes in the wake of reports that most of Indian construction firms may fail to clear the tough norms of the UP government if they make individual bids for project. Builders had also voiced their concerns at the pre-bid meeting on the RFQ held in Delhi on November 14. They had stated that the stiff conditions laid down will not permit any company to qualify and had exhorted the state government to relax the conditions to provide level-playing field for domestic companies.
It is probably in this context that the government has revised its RFQ and lowered the threshold project cost for eligible projects from 10% of total project cost (TPC) for category 1 and 15% of total project cost (TPC) in category 2 to project cost equaling to or more than Rs 400 crore in category 1 and 3 and project cost equaling to or more than Rs 600 crore in category 2 and 4.
Again, the net worth of the bidder has been revised to Rs 750 crore as on March 31, 2007, as per audited accounts for each contract package instead of 10% of the TPC of the project for which the application were submitted.
Further, the contract has been broken into four packages instead of three and the bidders may bid one or combination of (1 and 2) and/or (3 and 4) or all contract packages.
The earlier clause stating that ?For any project to be considered as eligible project, under both categories, it should have been completed/substantially (80%) completed during the 10-year period immediately preceding the application due date and escalation factor for arriving at eligible project,? has been omitted and the application date extended to December 3. The announcement of the short-listed applicants will be done on December 8.