VIJAYAWADA: Even as the State government is planning to launch, at the earliest, the works related to Vykuntapuram Barrage project, proposed to be built upstream of Prakasam Barrage to serve the needs of the capital region, there seem to be no takers for its execution. Not a single bid was filed after the Water Resources department invited tenders for the `2169-crore-project. Since there was no response from the bidders, the officials have once again begun the process of tendering.
Keeping in mind the future drinking water requirement, which is set to go up with Amaravati coming up, and with an objective to tap into excess flood waters for irrigation purposes, the State government has mooted the proposal of a 10 tmc reservoir at Vykuntapuram. After giving an administrative approval for the proposal in June, the Water Resources department invited tenders last month. Most of the designs related to the project have been approved by the Central Design Organisation (CDO). However, when the officials opened the tenders last week, they found that not a single bid was filed.
The reason behind this is said to be the high cost of tenders. While `1,088 crore is estimated to be spent on civil works, `772 crore is for land procurement. “When we opened the tenders on August 2, there were no bids. It may be because of the cost. So, we are inviting tenders again after revising the prices,” the Chief Engineer (CE) of Krishna Delta System (KDS), R Satish Kumar, told TNIE.
According to the CE, the tenders with revised rates would be floated in the next week. “The new Standard Schedule of Rates (SSR) have been set, and we will know them by Monday. We will take two days to revise the cost of the civil works of the project. After that, we will immediately invite the tenders,” Satish Kumar explained.
It may be noted that the reservoir will be built near the Vykuntapuram village of Guntur district, which is 23 km upstream the barrage, and nearly 60 km downstream Pulichintala project. Once built, the barrage will store 10 tmc of water in addition to the three tmc at Prakasam Barrage.