BMC big players dream crashes, same firms get road contracts

Despite tall claims, the civic administration has, for the second time in a row, failed to rope in big infrastructure firms for local road contracts. Instead, the same set of contractors, who have been repeatedly awarded projects over the past five years, have been awarded the first lot of contracts totalling Rs 388 crore.

Soon, the corporation will float contracts worth Rs 1,400 crore for concretisation and asphalting of roads in the island city, the western and eastern suburbs.

Chief engineer of the roads department G Aggarwal said in the western suburbs, six companies have bid for road concretisation contracts of Rs 300 crore, while three bids have been received for the Rs 88-crore asphalt contracts. The companies that have bid for these contracts include RPS Infraprojects Ltd (formerly R P Shah), Relcon Infraproject Ltd, Prakash Engineers, Vitrag Construction Company, J Kumar Infraprojects Ltd and KR Constructions.

Newsline accessed records of the major and minor road contracts awarded in the past five years to the six road contractors mentioned above (see box). KR constructions has acquired eight contracts worth almost Rs 200 crore for work on asphalt roads in the eastern suburbs, and concrete and asphalt roads in the western suburbs. Similarly, Relcon Infraprojects Limited has been awarded eight contracts for improvement and construction of concrete and asphalt roads in the island city and western suburbs. "If these contractors fulfill our bid requirements, it is a positive development for the corporation," said Aggarwal. Responding to allegations from small companies, which complained that the new tender conditions would block them from bidding, Aggarwal said: "Smaller companies can still bid through a joint venture with bigger companies. However, if we change the tender conditions, we will be sidelining the bigger players."

Taking asphalt roads alone, since 2008-09, Prakash Engineering has been paid for work on major and minor roads in the E ward. According to the civic body's pothole-tracking website, over a 1,000 potholes were reported in this ward alone. Similarly, in 2007-08, K R Constructions and J Kumar Infraproject Ltd were awarded contracts worth Rs 26 crore and Rs 36 crore respectively for constructing various asphalt roads in P South and P North wards. At 1,393 and 1,026 potholes respectively, these wards have one of the highest records of reported potholes this year.

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