When the Chennai Corporation Council meets later this month, it is expected to approve a slew of road contracts. These contracts will cover three large projects taken up by the civic body to create and improve road infrastructure across the city. Officials are currently processing tenders that were opened on December 6, for works involving 106 major roads, 71 footpaths and a slew of works to lay interior roads in all 15 zones in the second phase of the government’s ambitious Mega City Project.
Technical evaluations of the tenders are underway for the project, and officials say they will zero in on contractors for the works soon. These contracts would then be presented to the Corporation Council for approval.
The 106 roads and 71 footpaths are the latest project of the Corporation’s Bus Route Roads Department. Officials say they have no work pending and that all the works that had been taken up had been completed well before the monsoon season. With the civic body taking advantage of the failed monsoon by resuming work ahead of schedule, officials say there should be no trouble in ensuring timely completion of the project.
The officials are also preparing the contracts for the ambitious Mega City II project, which was envisioned to create and improve infrastructure across the city, while bringing the expanded areas on a par with the core areas of the city.
The first phase, Mega City I, had focused solely on the expanded areas. Its implementation is underway, with road laying works integrated with storm water drains, cable ducts, footpaths and streetlamps. The allocation made by the State government for Mega City I in 2011-12 had been Rs 333.27 crore.
The allocation for Mega City II had been pegged at Rs 366.23 crore. A vast part of this amount would go into laying thousands of interior roads across all 15 zones of the city. The supervision and responsibility for these works would fall under the respective Zonal Offices.
Tenders have been opened for a total of 27 of the 34 packages under Mega City II. While these would come up for the Council approval later this month, the remaining seven packages would be opened towards the end of December, and would come up for approval in January’s Council meeting, say officials.