Govt to buy 50 homes for VIPs
KATHMANDU, NOV 23 -
The Department of Urban Development and Building Construction (DUDBC) plans to issue a tender notice next week to purchase 50 houses and apartments in Kathmandu for VVIPs, VIPs and high-ranking government officials.
Department officials said that the process for inviting tenders was at the final stage, and the only thing remaining to be done is an assessment as per the Public Procurement Act (PPA).
The plan to buy homes for government bigwigs comes under the Immediate Action Plan for Governance and Economic Reform 2012, which includes “management of residences for high ranking officials and judges” in the Kathmandu valley. The government said that the
decision had been taken considering the “prestige” and “security concerns” of the beneficiaries.
Former presidents, vice presidents, prime ministers, judges, special personalities and members of constitutional bodies appointed after mid-April 2007 and incumbent high-ranking officials will be eligible to get the facility, according to the government’s action plan.
“Since the programme is one of the immediate priorities, the process will move ahead very fast. Most probably, we will issue the tender notice by Wednesday,” said Shambhu KC, director general at the DUDBC. “We have already finalized the specifications of the houses and apartments to be purchased, and are working on who should get them.”
Meanwhile, Suroj Rajkarnikar, division chief and superintendent engineer at the Building Construction Maintenance Division Office of the department, said that the action plan should have been implemented by now, but it was delayed as they were not sure about the procedure to be followed.
“We usually construct buildings for the government’s use. Since this is about buying homes, we were confused about how to do it,” said Rajkarnikar. He added that they were now comparing the government rate, the developers’ rate and land prices in possible areas in keeping with the Procurement Act.
Last March, the DUDBC had received applications from 10 real estate developers who were willing to allow the government to carry out a feasibility study of their projects. Three housing projects, namely Housing and Development at Dhapasi, Civil Homes at Dhapakhel and City Basti Bikas at Khumaltar, had filed applications for standalone houses. Similarly, seven projects, Westar Properties at Balkumari, Civil Estate at Sundhara, Civil Apartment at Dhapakhel, Lifestyle Housing at Sanepa, Cityscape Developers at Bakhundol, Down Town Housing at Khumaltar and Orchid Holdings at Rabi Bhawan, had submitted applications for apartments.
“These applications were collected to carry out the study besides finding out interested developers in the preliminary phase,” said Rajkarnikar. A fresh tender call will be issued to select the developer with whom the job will be carried out.
The government has allocated Rs 100 million for the purpose. According to the department, the Ministry of Finance has pledged to provide an additional sum of Rs 100 million. Under the action plan, the government is planning to purchase 25 houses and 25 apartments.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
