Comments
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport has expressed concerns over road projects under Central Road Infrastructure Fund (CRIF) being awarded at substantially lower bids than the amount stated by the government.
The panel, in a report placed before Parliament on Tuesday, recommended to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) to either frame upper and lower limits for bidding on road projects or monitor the quality and progress of projects awarded to substantially low bidders.
Downside of lower bids
The Committee recommends that the Ministry may review the existing guidelines for awarding of tenders for road projects under CRIF or otherwise, since it is often found that the projects get awarded at substantially lower bids than the amount projected by the Ministry or the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
“In such cases, the concessionaire is more likely to not actually complete the work at all, or do it with sub-par quality. In light of this, the committee recommends that the Ministry may either come out with upper and lower limits for bidding for road projects or establish a mechanism to strictly monitor the quality and progress of road projects awarded to substantially low bids,” the panel said.
Penalty for poor work
In cases where poor performance and sub-par quality of road projects is noticed, the contractor must be suitably penalised and their past project record must be duly considered before awarding any road projects in the future, it had further recommended.
In its response, the MoRTH said that states are authorised for administrative approval, technical approval and financial sanction of the CRIF works. State governments are only responsible for finalisation of the bid documents, invitation of tenders, award and management of contracts, including taking up penal action for poor performance and sub-standard quality of the works or any defaults of contractors.
Centre is no longer responsible for monitoring of state road projects under these schemes and expenditure incurred, it pointed out.
Must monitor quality
Responding to MoRTH’s reply, the committee said, “However, the reply furnished by the Ministry does not make any mention of the action taken, if any, to address the issue of the road projects which are not funded through CRIF, being awarded to bids substantially lower than the amount projected by the Ministry/NHAI.”
The Committee again recommended that MoRTH take up the matter of fixing upper and lower limits for bidding for road projects and a mechanism to strictly monitor the quality and progress of road projects awarded to substantially low bids, with the state governments.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.