Faced with massive cost overruns in its ambitious and much-delayed project to construct an equestrian statue of warrior-king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the Arabian Sea, the state government may finally re-tender the project.
Though the first phase of the statue, which is proposed to be the world’s tallest, had an estimate of Rs 2,500 crore, the lowest bid from engineering major L&T is at a much-steeper Rs 3,826 crore.
The project will be executed on a cash contract basis. Legislator Vinayak Mete who heads the committee monitoring the project admitted that they were stumped by the difference in its base price estimate and the final bids. “We have asked for the reasons of this difference to be examined,” he said.
Mete added that the state public works department (PWD) would negotiate with L&T to bring down the costs but admitted that a drastic reduction seemed unlikely. “There has been no decision so far on re-tendering or awarding the contract. However, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and the high-power committee will take a decision after examining the options,” said Mete, admitting that re-tendering was likely.
The Shivaji Maharaj statue, which has a 36 month completion period, will come up on a 15.96 hectare rocky basalt outcrop in the Arabian Sea 1.2 km south west of Raj Bhawan. Three infrastructure majors had bid for the project and while Reliance Infrastructure lost in the technical evaluation, Afcons and L&T had quoted Rs 4,779 crore and Rs 3,826 crore respectively.
The state government wants the statue to be the tallest in the world by rising to a height of a staggering 210 meters as against the proposed 192 meters. This may however push up the costs from the present estimate of Rs 3,700 crore for the two phases.
The revised plan will ensure that the statue, whose foundation was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December, is two meters taller than the Spring Temple Buddha in China’s Henan province, which is the world's tallest statue. Officials said the hill on which the statue of Vairocana Buddha is built was reshaped to increase its height to 208 meters.
Apart from a strong security presence, the memorial will have landscaped gardens, two jetties, library, helipad, medical amenities, amphitheater and museum.
The cost escalation and likely re-tendering will increase in the delays in the project. The memorial has been pending for almost 15 years and critics have apprehensions about if these funds could be put to better use like in social and welfare schemes.
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