The municipal corporation has once again failed to attract bidders for its ₹1408 crore Integrated Solid Waste Management project, with officials attributing the poor response to the project’s high cost and long-term operational commitment. The tender has now been extended for the fifth time. The request for proposal (RFP), floated on March 21, was initially scheduled to close on April 7 but has been repeatedly extended due to lack of participation. The deadline was first pushed to April 17, then April 23, followed by May 9, May 18, and has now been extended further by three days till May 21.
The project titled ’Development of Integrated Solid Waste Management (Collection, Transportation, Processing & Disposal) for MC Ludhiana’ includes door-to-door collection of segregated municipal solid waste, transportation to secondary compactor transfer stations, and processing and disposal facilities under a public-private partnership model.
Superintending Engineer Sham Lal Gupta confirmed the extension and said the bidding window has been extended by three days. “We have now extended the bidding time by three days. We expect some bidders before this extension closes,” he said.
In April, the MC had issued clarifications to address queries from stakeholders, stating that 35 acres of litigation-free land would be provided to the contractor and additional land would be arranged if required. It also said that the required number of secondary compactor transfer stations would be made available. However, these clarifications have not improved bidder response.
An MC official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the project has been floated for over a year with revised RFPs but has still failed to attract investors, largely due to its scale, cost, and long-term obligations.
{{/usCountry}}An MC official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the project has been floated for over a year with revised RFPs but has still failed to attract investors, largely due to its scale, cost, and long-term obligations.
{{/usCountry}}The city currently generates around 1100 metric tonnes of municipal solid waste daily, while the Jamalpur processing facility has a capacity of only about 300 metric tonnes, creating a significant gap between waste generation and processing capacity.