Local contractors seek leniency in open tender criteria

Eastern Mirror Desk Dimapur, Oct. 8: The Nagaland Contractors’ and Suppliers’ Union (NCSU) has submitted a representation to the minister of Public Works Department (PWD) with regard to the ‘Notice Inviting Tender’ (NIT) that was published in the local dailies on Oct. 2. In the representation, the union alleged that the criteria mentioned in the tender notice to qualify for the works were harsh and not applicable to the local contractors. “Earlier, the department used to split up the construction works in kilometre-wise so as to enable local contractors to get such works. However, the present criteria has put hurdles that hardly one or two local contractors would qualify for the works and the rest of the government registered class-I contractors including those from ENPO areas (sic) would not get any work,” the statement alleged. However, an engineer from the state’s PWD (Roads and Bridges) told Eastern Mirror on Monday evening that the criteria were not that stringent stating that the department has been following similar procedures in other programmes as well. Nevertheless, the official mentioned that the department would deliberate on the issue and give necessary clarification in the days to come. According to the tender notice published on Oct. 2, the bidding documents will be issued in respect of eligible registered contractors if they have completed one similar nature of work individually during the last five years costing not less than 40% of the tender  value. It also mentioned that the time of completion for the said tender is 12 months and the payment should be made in phased manner subject to availability of fund. In the NCSU statement, the contractors recalled that the state government had, in 2014, allotted four road projects under SARDP phase-I in Nagaland to M/s Mayatas & Gayatri (JV), despite their repeated demand to split the works into job-wise and allot it to local contractors. “However our demand was not considered and the projects resulted in total failure, and not a single road could be completed by them till today,” it added. The union has urged the state’s PWD to review the qualification criteria mentioned in the tender notice and split the works into ‘road-wise’ at the earliest so that local contractors would stand a chance to qualify for the contract.