The Hindu Business Line : Private cos appointed consultants for defence housing projects

THE Government has roped in the private sector for providing consultancy services to construct houses for defence services personnel under the Rs 19,000-crore Married Accommodation Project launched by the Prime Minister, Mr A.B. Vajpayee, last year.

Abandoning the Military Engineering Services (MES) route, contracts for preparing detailed project reports (DPRs) for works worth Rs 5,000 crore have already been awarded and the Defence Ministry hopes to begin construction in at least 10 locations within the current financial year itself.

While projects worth Rs 2,500 crore were given to the Central Public Works Department and public sector companies — the National Buildings Construction Company, Rites Ltd and Ircon Ltd on nomination basis last year, the Ministry recently finalised contracts for private companies after competitive bidding.

These consultants will advise the Defence Ministry on preliminary surveys to DPRs and prepare detailed site and unit plans. The consultants will also act as bid process managers and construction supervisors. Finally, the consultant would provide maintenance support for two years after commissioning, according to industry sources.

The entities chosen after competitive bidding include State-owned Projects and Development India Ltd with Mukesh and Associates, Singapore-based Meinhardt, Consulting Engineering Services Ltd and Dorsch.

These companies have bagged the projects for important military stations such as New Delhi, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Shillong and Visakhapatnam. The public sector companies have already begun work on the identified sites in Allahabad, Jhansi, Bareilly, and Bhopal, among others.

The scheme envisages construction of two lakh houses for personnel of the three armed forces, especially the junior commissioned officers and soldiers, who face acute shortage of accommodation in most locations.

"Often, the soldiers are not able to keep their families with them even in peace locations due to the shortage of houses. The new scheme seeks to address this problem and 90 per cent of the new houses will be for junior level armed forces personnel," a senior Army official said.

When MES was approached with the proposal, the agency's response was that given its manpower resources, it would take 36 years to construct the houses, which was unacceptable to the Government.

"It was then that we decided to look at alternatives and we feel that this mechanism will dramatically cut down the time taken to execute the project," the official said.

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