Chennai: Of the 10,000 roads identified by the city corporation for re-laying ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, work on several has not been taken up as contractors have preferred to stay away from bids. The corporation council passed a resolution to re-tender the road works in some areas as they had not attracted contractors’ attention.
The corporation had earlier announced that 10,000 interior roads in the city would be re-laid at an estimated cost of Rs 1,200 crore by the end of May 2014. The scheme was also focused to benefit the core city limits of the Chennai corporation. Some of the roads were also expected to be laid with cement concrete.
The mode of tendering out the bids seemed to bother the contractors as the package rates for the road laying works were high. The contractors had to invest their money to lay the roads whereafter they would be paid their dues which would also compensate their investment.
“A set of road works was packaged and tendered out, some of which would cost the contractors up to Rs 40 to Rs 50 crore to lay. Some requested the corporation to break up the works and bid separately, which it has done accordingly,” said a corporation official.
