The construction company for widening of Pukhrayan–Ghatampur–Bindki route will be shortlisted in a month.
Uttar Pradesh State Highways Authority (UPSHA) has floated the bid to widen the state highway 46 from the existing two-lane to four lanes.
The work to augment the infrastructure along the 82.53 km route was awarded to Indore-based Prakash Asphaltings and Toll Highways Limited on April 20 this year.
However, the company refused to take over the project later and was subsequently blacklisted by the state government. The authority also took a decision to forfeit the bank guarantee of Rs 11.36 crore provided by the company as security money on August 29.
The sudden turn of events forced the authority to float fresh rounds of bids for the project. “We have got responses from five construction companies and after the evaluation of their technical and financial bids we are expecting to shortlist the best company in the first week of November,” said a senior officer from the authority.
Though last time the state government had managed to outsource the project to the private player at a premium, agreeing to the authority’s proposal the government will be providing an amount of Rs 370 crore for execution of the project. The said amount has been kept aside as viability gap funding, a component required to ensure completion of the project which is provided as capital support for public-private-partnership projects.
The cost to commission the project has been estimated as Rs 1136.45 crore and apart from road widening, the construction company will also have to augment road safety measures and build flyovers at the busy intersections.
Prakash Asphaltings had agreed to infuse the entire amount and also offered to provide 1 per cent of the revenues generated through the toll collection to the authority after completion of the project.
“The company had taken the project after carrying out surveys and studies. It appears the private company intentionally tried to sabotage the key infrastructure project of the state and hence it was blacklisted. Its explanation is under consideration,” said a senior officer from the authority.
Sources said financial viability was put to question in the later stages of the tendering project as the daily traffic of the vehicles using the stretch was estimated in the range of 3,000 to 3,500 instead of the original projection of 5,000 vehicles.
