The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) on Friday made it clear that allotment of tender for Mohali’s ₹783-crore road development project would be subject to the outcome of the petition pending before it. The court was hearing a petition from registered contractors of GMADA, who have sought quashing of the January 11 bidding document in which the entire GMADA area was consolidated into one compact area. The project — Mohali’s Next Generation Programme — was announced last month for the upgradation, resurfacing and beautification of roads and junctions in Mohali.
According to lawyer HC Arora, GMADA filed a statement that didn’t answer any of the crucial issues raised by the petitioners. Hence, the high court bench of justice Lisa Gill and justice Ramesh Chander Dimri directed the state counsel to file a detailed para-wise reply, and further directed that allotment of tenders shall be subject to the outcome of the writ petition, adjourning the matter to April 1 for further proceedings.
The petitioners had contended that the entire tender process was aimed at eliminating the contractors already registered with GMADA and no provision for joint venture was made in the tender notice. It is also alleged that before issuing the tender notice, no detailed project report (DPR) was prepared and the GMADA chief engineer got the tender notice hurriedly approved from the chief secretary. “The inevitable consequence was that during the pendency of the writ petition, the estimated cost of the project has been reduced from ₹783 crore to ₹666 crore,” the petitioners alleged, further adding that the roads, which were either recently constructed or where the construction or the beautification work was being done through existing contractors, were also included in the tender in question.
As per the plea, the cost estimate of the project has not been prepared in the prescribed manner and it appeared that the entire project was aimed at conferring benefit on some big contractor. The proposed project is bound to cause a huge financial loss to the state exchequer and the existing contractors have been pushed out of the competition as already registered ones can’t afford the huge amount they are to submit as earnest money.
{{/usCountry}}As per the plea, the cost estimate of the project has not been prepared in the prescribed manner and it appeared that the entire project was aimed at conferring benefit on some big contractor. The proposed project is bound to cause a huge financial loss to the state exchequer and the existing contractors have been pushed out of the competition as already registered ones can’t afford the huge amount they are to submit as earnest money.
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