Mumbai: The Maharashtra government is considering a relaxation in tender norms wherever required in Naxal-hit Gadchiroli to fast-track work on roads and bridges in the sensitive district.
The state government has appointed a district-level panel of officials to take a call on bending tender norms where necessary, and also allay concerns of contractors working on ongoing projects that are facing roadblocks.
The move comes after the district recorded at least three major incidents of Naxals damaging sites of infrastructure projects, posing a threat to the workers and machinery deployed, in the past one year.
Work on site damaged before 1 May attack yet to restart
In the last attack that took place on 30 April, Naxals torched vehicles of a private contractor in Gadchiroli’s Kurkheda sub-district hours before they attacked and killed 15 security personnel on 1 May.
Amar Infrastructure was given the sub-contract of the construction of Purada-Yercaud section of a state highway in Gadchiroli. Work had been under way since late 2018 and the company had posted about a hundred people at the site. This site was part of the larger 50-km Purada-Yercaud-Godalwai road reconstruction project, costing Rs 135 crore.
Work at the project site was halted after the attack.
Four months on, the construction work is yet to start, said a senior official from the public works department in Gadchiroli, who didn’t wish to be named.
ThePrint reached Amar Infrastructure for a comment but there was no response. This report will be updated if the company responds.
The PWD official quoted above, who is also a part of the newly-formed committee, said, “There are some such works in sensitive areas where work has stalled or slowed down. The committee can try to engage with the contractor and find solutions.”
What the panel can do
The six-member panel, set up under the district collector, comprises officials from the state public works department, the district police superintendent and the district forest officer, with 78 per cent of the landmass of Gadchiroli being under forests.
The panel is authorised to take decisions such as opt for manual tendering if there isn’t an adequate response to e-tendering or even break up large contracts into smaller works to match the risk-taking appetite of contractors in the district.
According to government norms, all works above Rs 3 lakh have to be awarded after e-tendering, and breaking up bigger contracts into smaller works to bypass e-tendering is prohibited.
“In some cases where the work is in extremely dangerous areas in the interiors of the district, contractors often quote a price that is much higher than our estimates. Any quote higher than five per cent has to be referred to the state government for approval,” said a state government official who didn’t wish to be identified.
The panel will also be able to sanction works where the lowest quote is a maximum of 15 per cent more than the estimated cost by simply informing the government, he added.
The 1,513 villages of Gadchiroli are largely populated by tribals, who comprise about 39 per cent of the district’s population, according to data from the state government. A number of these tribal hamlets and villages are sparsely populated and set apart from each other, without many all-weather roads or bridges as connectors.
Earlier, the state government had taken help from the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) to build infrastructure in the district. The BRO, however, expressed its unwillingness to continue work after 2010 and since then the state PWD has been in charge.
Also read: After Naxal attack, Gadchiroli road project stares at uncertainty as workers fear going back