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Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Deptt unhappy with progress on alternate bypass road construction RANJIT SINGH

GANGTOK, 07 July: It has been more than three years now that KMC Brahmaputra was awarded the contract for the construction of an alternate bypass road connecting Ranipool to Bojoghari along the Ranka axis. However, as department officials inform, the work, which should have been speeding along and nearing completion, has been slow, tedious and, at times, also a matter of consternation. As a result, the Roads & Bridges Department had decided to debar the company from partaking in tender notices of the State government. An order to this effect was issued by the Department in February earlier this year. The notice was akin to temporarily blacklisting the company.
KMC Brahmaputra has meanwhile been given some relief by the High Court of Sikkim in relation to its eligibility to bid for contract works in the state. This relief however is subject to satisfactory performance of the present work being undertaken by the company. The High Court had noted that the order for debarring itself stated that upon satisfactory progress and further improvement in the work, the matter would be reviewed. Therefore the company has been directed to submit a review petition along with improvement record in the work and in case it is satisfactory, the Department would reconsider the matter in a time bound manner.
As the Chief Engineer Mr. Tongden informs, this order for debarring was subject to satisfactory performance of the remaining work by the company. “We will be soon reviewing the works completed by the company,” stated Mr. Tongden. According to the CE, it was high time that action was taken to haul up the work ethics and management of the company engaged in the construction of the alternate highway.
“This is a Strategically Important Road (SIR) fully funded by the central government. With this alternate highway there will be significant decongestion of the highway in Gangtok and it will serve a strategic purpose with movement of heavy machinery etc,” informed the CE.
As per the work order issued by the Centre – the award for road construction was made on the basis of a national tender – the alternate bypass was scheduled to be completed in just over three years. The work was awarded in 2011 and the present cost of the work is estimated at around Rs. 153 crores. However, as of now only 15 of the 23 kilometres of the alternate highway are informed to have been ‘completed’; another 8 km still remain to be ‘constructed’.
Even the constructed 15 km is not totally complete as blacktopping and other finishing works still remain, it is informed.
In light of this unsatisfactory progress and performance of KMC Brahmaputra, the R&B Department conducted a meeting early this year to assess the performance and lay down new parameters for remaining works. As the CE informs, the company was then told in no uncertain terms that it had to give an undertaking that it would abide by certain deadlines in the construction of the alternate bypass. There were other conditions as well that the company was required to adhere to given its performance. It was here that the company was temporarily ‘blacklisted’.
On the other hand the company was also almost regularly running into some hurdle or the other in terms of progress of its work. There was the problem of land acquisition with locals not willing to provide land; there was also the road cutting works which was causing much slush and also minor slides in the area all adding up to delay in the works.
“We understand some of the factors which have contributed to the delay in the works,” said the CE, however he says that even so, the company exhibited much incompetence. For example it employed only three machines; then there was problem of payment to the labourers. But since then, the department has held meetings with the company with the objective to get it to put up its socks. Consequently, the company is now using 11 machines instead of the earlier three and it is expected that other aspects of the works will also be improved upon. For the remaining eight kilometers, the department has given it a time period of 18 months; there are also other smaller deadlines which the department will be monitoring. The CE says that with the monsoons it is expected that there will again be delays. “There are some factors which we can accept,” he said.
In the mean time, as per the High Court directive, should KMC Brahmaputra submit any tender in pursuance of any NIT, the same is not to be rejected because of the order debarring it from taking part in such tenders.  Also, the R&B department is preparing to conduct a review of the progress of the works based upon which it will file its report.

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