Goverment overhauls norms for highway project preparation, supervision contracts

Goverment overhauls norms for highway project preparation, supervision contracts

NEW DELHI: Amid the trend of private players quoting low prices to bag project preparation and supervision consultancy contracts, the road transport ministry has made sweeping changes in tendering norms.

As per the new rules, the ministry will cap the maximum score that bidders would get even if they quote abnormally low prices and there will also be a limit on how many contracts any consultancy firm, based on assessment of its capacity, can take at one point of time.

Recently, two probe reports on Silkyara tunnel collapse in Uttarkashi by the central and Uttarakhand governments pointed to preparation of “deficient” detailed project report (DPR), a trend that has become a cause of concern for the government as well.

TOI has learnt that the road transport ministry has circulated the amended norms to all highway owning agencies.

Preparation of poor DPRs results in deficient project planning, delays implementation and leads to frequent change of scope, which ends up adding to costs for government.

As per the new norms, the revised weightage will be 80% for technical and 20% for financials, which is known as quality-cum-cost based selection (QCBS). The agencies will open financial bids only when a company gets an 80% score on technical parameters. Then the average bid prices quoted by all the bidders will be worked out and any bidder quoting 25% less than the average price will get the maximum score. This will bring bidders to a level playing field.

Sources said these provisions have been incorporated considering that the finance ministry guidelines specify that no bidder can be eliminated. “Till now companies that score less in technical qualification, which takes into account the qualified manpower on their roll and their past records, end up bagging projects after quoting very low prices. This resulted in less capable players getting more projects. Now it will change,” said an official.

Similarly, there will be a cap on the number of projects a private player can get based on its capacity, including turnover and permanent key personnel. Companies will be barred from bidding for future projects, if they give wrong information. In certain cases, the companies would have to pay back the salaries or fees they get for their key expert professionals, if the details are found to be wrong.

According to the new norms, there will be ratings of consultants as well.

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