VIJAYAWADA: After a poor response to the tenders called for the execution of Vykuntapuram Barrage, proposed to meet the needs of capital Amaravati, the Water Resources department has reinvited tenders.
The officials said that technical bids will be opened early next week, following which financial bids will be scrutinised. While the department had previously planned to develop the foundation for the 10-tmc-capacity reservoir this month, it is likely to get delayed further.
“We are going to open the technical bids in three or four days. Then, we need two weeks to evaluate whether the agency is eligible or not,” Chief Engineer of Krishna Delta System, R Satish Kumar, said. It may be recalled that no agency participated in the bidding process when the department opened the first round of tenders on August 2. Subsequently, the department revised the cost to 1,025 crore - as per the latest Standard Schedule of Rates (SSR) - from the previous 898 crore and floated fresh tenders, the Chief Engineer explained.
The total estimated cost of the project is 2,169 crore, of which about 772 crore will be spent on land acquisition. However, even though a fresh round of tenders have been invited, officials are apprehensive about the response. “Since the project is critical due to the area of execution, which is in the middle of the sea, the response may not be as expected even now. We will get to know how many firms participated by early next week,” another senior official said.