Potential bidders for Fast Track taking their time
KATHMANDU, MAY 08 -
Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), one of the firms shortlisted for the Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track Road project, has requested the government to extend the deadline to submit bids by three months. The last date for submitting the bid documents is May 21.
The Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport officials said that IL&FS had sought additional time saying that it needed to do a detailed survey of the project.
“We are against providing extra time,” said Rajendra Sharma, project manager of the Fast Track Road Project. He added that they had asked all the three shortlisted firms to provide a progress report of their preparations to submit the bid documents before deciding on a time extension.
Last December, the government had shortlisted three Indian firms IL&FS, L&T and Reliance Infrastructure and had invited them to submit requests for proposal (RFP). At that time, the firms were given four months until April 21 to present their financial and technical proposals to build the 76-km expressway estimated to cost Rs 80 billion under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model. Earlier in March, based on the demand of Larsen and Turbo (L&T) Infrastructure Development Project, another firm shortlisted for the project, the government had extended the deadline by one month till May 21 to submit the RFP.
An official at the Infrastructure Ministry said that even as IL&FS and L&T Infrastructure Development Project were working on a detailed study to submit their RFPs, Reliance had not come in contact for the last three months. Reliance is a subsidiary of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group of India and has been qualified to submit an RFP for the Fast Track project.
Sharma said that they did not know what Reliance was doing as it had been out of contact. He added that they had not received any information about the firm’s officials visiting the site to do a detailed survey and prepare the proposal.
The non-appearance of Reliance, which was considered to be one of the frontrunners, has left government officials stunned. The Indian firm had participated in two previous expressions of interest (EoIs) called in 2009 and 2011.
An Infrastructure Ministry official said that the company did not have a local partner in Nepal and seemed to have lost interest after being shortlisted. “We have heard that Reliance is not interested in the Fast Track project due to its internal problems,” added the source.
In February, Reliance had also missed the pre-bid meeting on the project. The RFP requires bidding firms to carry out detailed surveys, investigations and other detailed examination of the project by visiting the site before submitting their bids.
The study is considered vital to help firms determine the project cost, toll rate, required tax facilities and equity support of the government. The project cost and the toll rate are two major components which will determine the selection of a bidder to build the expressway.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
