Ahmedabad civic body re-tenders EWS housing project for 4th time

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation will issue a re-tender for building houses for urban poor for the fourth time in four years.

The estimated cost of the project under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) has also been increased by Rs19 crore.

The AMC's standing committee rejected the bids of two private builders for building 3,808 houses as the bids were 30% higher than the estimated cost.

Opposition Congress was not convinced by the civic body regarding the tender notice. The AMC had made it clear in the tender that bidders, whose contract of construction of monolithic/Mascon or similar technology housing works, were in progress with AMC cannot participate in the tender process.

As the Congress opposed this tender condition, the standing committee chairman ordered to remove from the notice inviting tenders, said Surendra Baxi, standing committee Congress member.

Baxi said that such terms and condition indicate that the ruling party wants to award the contract to the bidders with whom the saffron party were hand-in-glove.

The civic body first invited tenders for building 2,500 units at an estimated cost of around Rs38.45 crore and the contract was awarded at around Rs45.02 crore which was higher by 17.10%. However, the civic body failed to provide land for constructing the housing and the tenders were cancelled.

The new tender was invited by dividing the original lot in two lots containing 1,280 units and 1,248 units in March 2010.

However, the bidders quoted around Rs47.04 crore. The civic body cancelled tenders and re-invited the tenders in November 2010 only to receive a higher bid of more than Rs57.05 crore.