Big money may not pull big contractors

Experts, civic officials are sceptical about the civic body’s strategy, say contract patterns, low material rates may keep major players away.

While the civic body has made its first serious attempt at attracting bigger, more reputable firms to build city’s roads, many are sceptical if the big players will bite the bait. The sceptics include several experts and civic officials.

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“We made similar efforts to attract big such firms last year, without any success. This shows that they are probably not that interested,” said Rahul Shewale, chairman of the BMC’s standing committee.

Roadwork tenders floated by the BMC were usually worth Rs 10 crore to Rs 20 crore. Last year, the civic body decided to float tenders worth up to Rs 70 crore, in a bid to attract more reputable firms.

However, the efforts failed. Far from filing tenders, not a single major construction firm even bought them. This time, the civic body has refused to allow contractors to enter into a joint venture with other contractors. With this, the BMC has tried to ensure only contractors with deep pockets can take up work. However, this too might not help.

A senior civic official, who chose not to be named, said he was doubtful if big contractors would show interest.

“Our scheduled rates for material to be used in these roadworks are much below their market rates. Small-time contractors bid low, cut corners and end up making profits. But bigger construction firms can’t afford to do that. Hence, they will not be a part of the process,” the official said.

Nandkumar Salvi, former chief engineer and member of the high court-appointed road monitoring committee said the civic body’s approach wasn’t enticing enough for bigger contractors. “Big construction firms will not be interested if the BMC assigns single roads scattered across the city. They are more interested in building an unbroken stretch of road, like a Marine Drive or a highway,” Salvi said.

He added that the civic body was missing the point. “The key to good roads is better, stricter supervision by engineers. If the supervision is not strict, roads will continue to be bad, big contractor or small.”