VIJAYAWADA: With only a month left for the new sand policy to come into effect, the Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation (APMDC) has begun the process for selection of contractors for excavation, transportation, stocking and loading of sand. The government, which will go for reverse tendering for finalising contractors, is scheduled to complete the entire process by August 28.
According to officials, the selection will be done in two rounds. First, interested parties will be required to file technical bids with initial price offer. Then, the APMDC will select bidders who satisfy the given conditions. In the second round, the qualified bidders will have to participate in reverse e-auction.
“The qualified bidders will have to submit their final price offer (FPO) for sand mining. There will be a ceiling price and the FPO should be lower than that. The bidders will be able to see the prevailing lowest FPO against the sand reach, but the name of the bidders will not be displayed. They can change the FPO till the conclusion of the e-auction,” an official explained.
The official noted that the ceiling price was currently being decided and that the e-auction was scheduled to be held on August 9. The APMDC plans to issue letters of intent (LOI) to successful bidders by August 21 and enter into agreements with them by August 28 as the sand policy-2019 kicks in from September 5.
The APMDC has also given the schedule of sand reaches and clusters for which the tenders were called for. Officials said 20 reaches each in Krishna and East Godavari districts, 14 in Guntur, 12 in Nellore and Srikakulam, seven in Anantapur, six in Kadapa and Kurnool districts, five in West Godavari and three in Chittoor were identified.