The Hindu : Karnataka News : Government to rescind contract

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Wednesday, Jul 18, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Government to rescind contract

Special Correspondent

The Gujarat-based company has been accused of failure
to complete work
in time

GULBARGA: The Government has decided to rescind the contract of maintenance of State Highways given to a Gujarat-based contracting firm, A.K. Patel Company, for “failure” to complete work in time.

Official sources told The Hindu here on Tuesday that the Government had awarded the work of maintaining 287 km of State Highways in Gulbarga, Raichur and Bidar districts to the company less than two years ago.

The contract had a condition that in the first year of the contract period, the company should complete pothole filling of the entire stretch, resurface and reconstruct wherever required, and in the next two years the entire stretch should be maintained. It awarded the work at a cost of over Rs. 9 crore.

The sources said that the contractor had failed to complete the work allocated to him even after 17 months. So far only 66 per cent of pothole filling and 32 per cent of resurfacing and 29 per cent of reconstruction of State Highways has been completed.

As per the decision of the Government to involve private participation in the maintenance of State Highways, the Public Works Department had awarded the maintenance of a 99.2-km stretch from Sarasamba in Aland taluk to Ripponpalli, a 99.8-km stretch from Gulbarga city to Hosur, a 81.2-km stretch from Basavakalyan in Bidar district to Raichur and the 6.81-km stretch Basavakalyan-Hulsur-Mudbi Road to the Surat-based company. It was supposed to complete the pothole filling, resurfacing and reconstruction work by the end of September 2006.

Much to the chagrin of legislators, particularly Aland MLA B.R. Patil and Afsalpur MLA M.Y. Patil, most of the reaches in their constituencies given for private maintenance had not been attended to. The entire stretch of the Gulbarga-Hosur Road passing through Afsalpur taluk and major parts of Sarasamba-Ripponpalli Road remained as it was. After the two legislators took up the issue with the Government demanding cancellation of the contract and re-tendering of work, the Government decided to rescind the contract in November last. However, this could not be implemented after the contractor obtained a stay order from the High Court.

The sources said that the Government later came to a out-of-court settlement with the contractor and decided to give the company time till February 2007 to complete the remaining work. The Government is likely to re-tender the work now.

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