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Our Bureau

Kolkata , June 6

THE East Central Railway, which came into being from April 2003, is finding it hard to attract contractors to execute various projects worth about several hundred crores of rupees.

"In the past few months, we floated nine tenders but the level of response leaves much to be desired," Mr Rajeev Bhargava, Chief Administrative Officer (Construction) of East Central Railway, told newspersons here on Monday.

"There was no response at all to three of the tenders floated and very poor response, one offer each, for the others," Mr Bhargava said pointing out that in case of single bidding it was difficult to take decision. "We must have competitive bidding," he said.

Mr Bhargava and his colleagues from East Central Railway, therefore, held meetings with major railway contractors here to apprise them of the huge volume of work awaiting them in Bihar and Jharkhand. Similar meetings are to be held in Delhi, Ranchi and Hyderabad.

He conceded that the "local factor" (meaning the stranglehold of the local mafia) could be the major reason for reluctance on the part of major contractors from other regions to bid for jobs.

"But what we would like to tell them is that the volume of job is so large that they stand to benefit immensely even after meeting the local demands," he said. "If railway projects could be executed in Jammu & Kashmir and the north-eastern region, there is no reason why the contractors should feel shy of taking up jobs in Bihar and Jharkhand," he said. The financial and technical capability of local contractors bidding for the jobs was far from satisfactory, it was pointed out.

The East Central Railway has to complete earthwork and construction of a number of major and minor bridges to be able to complete construction of 1,745 km of railway lines within the next few years. Of these, the construction of new lines will be 1,060 km, doubling 118 km and gauge conversion 567 km. "To meet the targets, we have to complete construction of 338 major bridges and 1,689 minor bridges within the next two to three years but as the situation stands now we have not yet been able to invite bids for bulk of the jobs," he said.

In 2004-05, the East Central Railway handled a total of 58.25 million tonnes (mt) of traffic and the target for the current year (2005-06) has been set at 62 mt. The target, it is felt, may be difficult to achieve if work on some of the projects is not completed on time.

The East Central Railway, with headquarter in Hajipur (Bihar), comprises five divisions — Dhanbad, Mugalsarai, Danapur, Sonepur and Samastipur, with approximately 3,500 route km and 7,500 track kms. Before April 2003, all these were under the Eastern Railway.

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