VIJAYAWADA: The fresh tender floated by the State government for reverse bidding of Polavaram irrigation project has the same model of execution — lump sum — as the one awarded to Navayuga Engineering Company Ltd (NECL) in January, 2018. With both the models being same, it brings to fore a question as to why re-tendering is being done.
A top-ranking official explained that the major reason for re-tendering was to rectify the anomalies in the contracting system, which resulted in violations during bill payments to the companies. “The expert committee constituted to review the project told us two things. One, prices were jacked up, and two, the contract was awarded on nomination basis. The jacking up of prices was agreed to by the government under special circumstances.
But, giving work on a lump-sum basis while the actual contract model was Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) resulted in the payment violations,” an official said. The same was mentioned in Special Chief Secretary Adityanath Das’ letter to Polavaram Project Authority’s CEO RK Jain on Monday. “The Expert Committee reviewed the project works and opined that entrustment of works on nomination basis to NECL and Bekem Infra Pvt Ltd was in violation of EPC agreement norms,” Das said in the letter. Observing the difference between EPC and lump sum in terms of payments, another official said that while bills would be cleared only after certain project milestones were achieved in the former, payment would be done based on the number of works in the latter.
Sources said that NECL and Bekem Infra Pvt Ltd, both executing the irrigation components ever since they were awarded the works after deleting works under section 60 (C) of Andhra Pradesh Detailed Standard Specification (APDSS) last year from Transstroy Ltd, have given their consent to the government’s pre-closure notice.