New deadline set for reparing City roads

New deadline set for reparing City roads
Deccan Herald

At the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) it is crackdown time on truant contractors; the faulting will be ‘blacklisted’. The BMP Council on Tuesday set February 10 as the deadline by which all the contractors who have received work orders under the Package-I (on road asphalting) shall get started with the work.

The faulting contractors be blacklisted against being selected for the Package-II works and their unstarted works be re-tendered in sum separately, the BMP Council resolved on Tuesday.

The contractors have over the last three months boycotted BMP’s repeated tender calls on road asphalting. Their main contention being the vast disparity in the existing schedule of rates and market rates.

With the last date for the submission of bids for Package II works due on February 3, Commissioner K Jothiramalingam told the council that the BMP administration was ready with options should the contractors fail to respond again.

Option one: the BMP will seek exemption from the provisions of the Karnataka Transparency and Public Procurements Act whereby the work can be entrusted directly to an agency of its choice. Option two: the BMP will re-package the works to a larger size such that global players like the contractors handling the Golden Quadrilateral project can take up the work. Earlier across the political divide the corporators vent their ire on the BMP engineering staff.

‘We need no explanations, tell us when you will start the work’, demanded the BJP in chorus; the JD(S) too would hear no explanations. The ruling Congress found its angry voice in former mayors K Chandrashekar and P R Ramesh. Mr Chandrashekar,MLA, repeatedly snubbed BMP Engineer-in-Chief Ramegowda.