Indian Express 11.09.2009
Bids for 9 cities cancelled, fresh bids on Sept 14
The Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam has cancelled all the bids that were received so far for setting up the Solid Waste Management system in 9 cities. The fresh bids will now be invited on September 14 and the received bids will be opened on the same day.
According to an official, the bids were cancelled as the bidding firms had quoted high tipping fees in their financial bids for collection and transportation of solid waste.
The project, which is under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), was approved by the Centre for 9 cities — Lucknow, Aligarh, Mathura, Jhansi, Meerut, Gorakhpur, Allahabad, Varanasi and Moradabad.
According to the system, a single firm will be responsible from collecting the waste material to the formation of bio-fertiliser to the disposal at the land fill site.
The Construction and Design Services (C&DS), a wing of Jal Nigam, is executing the bidding process on behalf of the urban local bodies. The Jal Nigam has also appointed a Gurgaon-based company, Deloittee Touche Tohmatsu India Private Limited, as the consultant for the project.
“The Jal Nigam had estimated an amount as tipping fees in the bid document. But the tipping fees that bidders had quoted in the financial bids were 50 to 80 per cent higher than the amount estimated by the Jal Nigam,” said a C&DS official.
“The high tipping fees was not feasible for the project. Hence, all the bids were cancelled,” said the official. In case of high tipping fees, people will have to pay high service charge.
According to Director of C&DS P K Bhukesh, a new condition has been added in the bid document, whereby a firm cannot hike the tipping fees for the first three years.
The Jal Nigam had received 29 bids in June for these cities from four firms — SPML, RAMKY, A2Z and Hydro Air. The technical bids received for Lucknow and Gorakhpur had been cancelled in the initial stage and fresh bidding process was started for both the cities in August. For the rest, the evaluation of the financial bids started from July 24.
To ensure use of land fill site for a longer time, the government has put a condition that the firm will have to utilise 80 per cent waste and dispose only 20 per cent.
Currently, over 1,300 MT of solid waste is generated in Lucknow, 600 MT each in Varanasi, Meerut, Allahabad; 280 MT each in Moradabad and Gorakhpur, 220 MT in Aligarh, 200 MT in Jhansi and 180 MT in Mathura.
